15 – 18 April 2023
Pronounce Whangārei and you will get it wrong if you are not Kiwi or Māori. It’s fuhng·uh·ray or faang·guh·ray. Where the Wh went, we do not know. But back to why we are here. Bonnie had never been north of Auckland and wanted to see what it is like. In fact, when we mentioned our final destination for this trip, many Kiwis admitted they had never ventured this far north. We are 128 miles from the northwestern tip of the North Island. Our take on the landscape is that it does not have the large number of dairy and sheep we have seen elsewhere, probably due to lack of large expanses of land on this thin part of the island.
The drive from Tanguara was long. It took more than six hours including lunch at a delightfully funky pub just north of Auckland. Part of this time was due to the heavy traffic around Auckland, some because of road construction and repair. We have encountered road repair throughout New Zealand on this trip. Some is to fix damage of the slippages from all the rain on the North Island this year. Some attribute this to the Ministry of Works catching up after a two-year Covid hiatus on road repairs. But continued road repairs are normal because of the soil conditions on both islands. Also, Kiwis are in love with roundabouts. We have seen quite a few new ones being built or newly constructed.
Our hotel is a ten-minute walk to the recently developed harborside with shops, cafes, and restaurants of this town of approximately 55,000 people. We had most of our meals there. The downtown is a further five-minute walk away. The harborside is filled with sailboats and catamarans displaying flags of New Zealand and USA. The place must be hopping in the summer months. Right now, the boats seem to be settling in for a rest until summer comes around in December.
The harborside is well designed with a variety of areas for play and relaxation. It also has a great art gallery designed by and later dedicated to Friedensreich Hundertwasser. We ran across his work at the Quixote Winery in Sonoma with Eileen, Richard, and Bob last year. Never got a true understanding of his work until now. Although he was born pre WWII in Austria, he made his home in New Zealand in the 1970s. He trained as a painter, later entering the field of architecture in the 1950s. His work is a sort of pop artist rendition of Klimt. Maybe. The museum is small and very manageable for a two-hour visit. The roof is planted because Hundertwasser was a huge proponent of treating roofs this way. Robert wonders why he never made it to the College of Environmental Design at UCB back then. It would have been a very interesting lecture.
Because we were here for several days, we were able to drive farther north to the scenic Bay of Islands, a well-known vacation destination. Our first stop was Paihia (population 2,800), a pleasant small town with waterfront moorings for boats and a helicopter outfit for touring the islands. Our next destination was Russell (population 810) via a small car ferry. It was the first sea port and permanent British settlement in New Zealand. At one time, Russell was known as the The Hell Hole of the Pacific for lawlessness. A bit like the Barbary Coast in San Francisco. The Bay of Islands offered the Māori a natural harbor and bountiful natural resources. Trade with Europeans in timber, liquor, and guns helped create a community without European or Maori laws. Prostitution became rampant. Missionaries later came to the rescue along with New Zealand’s first printing press that they used to print the Bible in Māori.
Our last day here was a leisurely one with lunch and a drive to Auckland for our flight out.
On the Way from Tauranga
Lunch at the Puhoi Pub
Accommodations
Wandering Around the Whangarei Waterfront
16 April 2023
Day Trip North to the Bay of Islands
On the Way
Paihia
Ferry Crossing the Bay of Islands from Opua to Russell
Russell
On the Way to Helena Bay
Helena Bay
17 April 2023
Hundertwasser Art Center
18 April 2023
Auckland Airport
With so much time before our 11:35 PM flight, we decided to have lunch at Aqua at the Hundertwasser museum before we left. Then we chose a long, indirect route that zigzagged to the airport. The route took us along rural roadways with great views. Much of the roadway went along the ridge line of the hills. The rain was off and on, although the temperature was mild in the low 60s F.
Food and Things
Aqua
This restaurant is in the Hundertwasser Art Gallery. The gallery and restaurant opened only one and half years ago during covid so they are not yet showing up in Bonnie’s guidebooks. Great food. One of the best places we dined in New Zealand.
No Next Stop—San Francisco—End of the Line!