Author: richwest3

March 13, 2013

The most interesting feature of the town of Whangaroa is St. Paul’s Mount, a mountain topped by a rocky peak.  We hear it’s a very nice hike up there, with a great view, but we only spent one night and didn’t have a chance to do it.

In the morning before we left, we were treated to something we’re not used to seeing in New Zealand: morning fog.  It reminded me of mornings in California. –Cyndi

March 12, 2103

We picked up our anchor and headed further inland to Whangaroa Village.  We’d visited the town by car, but I was curious now to experience it by boat.  Part of the boater’s experience is going ashore to see if there’s a reasonably-stocked market for replenishing diminishing food supplies, a restaurant or cafe to replenish the tired cook, and a place where you can toss your accumulated trash.

We headed to town and located a trash bin but needed to buy a special bag to use it, a common way of paying for trash service in remote areas like this.  We headed to the market to buy a bag, checking out the town as we went.  It’s very small, and being an old fishing village, some of the residents are a little crusty around the edges.  The market was tiny and we didn’t find much, but I was thrilled to find a Fishing Club in town.  This was one of those fishing club restaurants scattered around New Zealand, private but they usually allow guests to visit.

We went back that evening for dinner at the Fishing Club, only to find that while we could eat there, only members can buy alcoholic beverages.  We could ask a member to buy a drink for us, but walking up to a table of strangers and asking if they could buy us beer was not appealing.  On top of that, the food took a long a long time to arrive.  I was not a fan of the place at this point, but the food turned out to be quite good, especially the popcorn shrimp and Rich’s burger.  I have to say I’d go back for the food.

In all, this bay is kind of a cool place and worth a night if you have time, but it’s not as amazing as the bays further out in the fjord-like area of the harbor. –Cyndi

March 2013

We couldn’t stay at every bay in Whangaroa, but we did take some time to go poke around. As we headed inland (towards Whangaroa Village) from our Owhatanga and Rere Bay anchorages, the landscape became less mountainous and more hilly.

Milford Island (our first anchorage) basically divides a large bay in half.  We had anchored in on the northeast side (Owhatanga Bay), but there’s a nice anchorage area on the south side called Touwai Bay.  After Touwai, we checked out the next bay around the corner, Waitapu Bay.

Unfortunately, while I can identify the first picture as the south side of Milford Island, I’m not sure if the other pictures are of Touwai Bay or Waitapu Bay.  They have the same general look; so I’ll post them anyway. –Cyndi

March 9 and 12, 2013

There’s a special place in Whangaroa Harbour called the Kingfish Lodge, and one of the things that makes it special is its location.  It sits at the foot of a hill in a small bay, Kingfish Bay not far from the pass into the harbor, and you can only get there by boat.

The lodge itself is small, with only a few rooms, but their restaurant and bar get a lot of business from visiting boaters.  It has an amazing view of the fjord-like bays at the other side of the harbor and is a great way for a non-boater boat to see the area.  (They have a small boat to pick up guests/visitors from the town of Whangaroa a couple of miles inland).

If you do have a boat and want to visit, you should call ahead for a reservation.  They hold a lot of fishing tournaments here, and during that time the lodge is completely booked. Otherwise, they welcome visiting yachties.  After you’ve made your lunch or dinner reservation, you can either take your dinghy or pick up one of their moorings if you want to bring your boat.  We came here two different times and picked up a mooring both times.

Once you arrive, you are welcome to stroll around the grounds and take easy trails that lead to points at either end of the bay.  The walk is through forest has the feeling of the Pacific Northwest, but the views across the bay are very reminiscent of Fatu Hiva in the Marquesas and are fantastic!

The restaurant has a dining room, but the deck has the best views.  We were there for lunch when it was pretty empty and had no problem getting a deck table.  They have two menus: a bar menu which has more moderately priced meals, or a restaurant menu with more elaborate and expensive meals.  We could choose either one, but they wanted us both to order from the same menu.

We chose from the restaurant menu the first time we went (splitting the filet mignon and the fresh fish and the sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce for dessert), and the food was fabulous.  In spite of being in such a remote place, they have an excellent chef. And while the food was fancy, the feeling of the place was very casual, and the lodge’s dog carefully supervised our enjoyment of the meal.  The next time we went, we ordered off the Bar menu, which has more casual fare.  We split the fish and chips and salt and pepper calamari, and both were excellent.

In all, we consider this one of the special finds on our cruise and highly recommend it.  But if possible, avoid going the day before a tournament as those are a big deal here and they’re distracted by all the preparations they have to make.  Rich did some fun blog posts about this place back when we were actually there: here, here and here.   Here is a small gallery of pictures for this post.  Click to enlarge and scroll. –Cyndi

March 12, 2013

Aside from Rere Bay, there’s another anchorage in Whangaroa at the base of steep cliffs. It’s on the north side of the harbor, just behind Peach Island.  We passed it numerous times, but because of time constraints we didn’t get to stay there.

Still, it’s a neat-looking place, and if we get ever get back up to Whangaroa Harbour we’d love to anchor there.  For now, we have the photos we took as we motored by. –Cyndi