Author: richwest3

December 27, 2012

The Tutukaka coast is just north of Whangarei (the city 45 minutes south of Opua) and is a great outing when you’re going between the two places.  There’s a loop off the main highway, and if you just stayed in your car, you could drive it in less than an hour, but you’d miss some wonderful stuff.  To really see it, you’ll have to do some parking and walking.  I’d give it a good 3 hours or more.

We started from the south end of the loop, taking the turnoff towards the town of Tutukaka.  The drive took us through the beautiful pastures of Glenbervie and its old stone walls.  About 20 minutes later, we arrived at the small town of Ngunguru, located on a river estuary just inland from the coast. (No, I can’t pronounce it.)

We parked and walked down the beach to find the huge pohutukawa tree which leans out over water.  On a sunny day, when the tide is high and the tree covered with red blossoms, it contrasts with blue-green shallow water beneath it.  Today the tide was low, the sky gray, and the tree barely starting to bloom.  It wasn’t the picture I hoped for, but the tree was still impressive, the place still neat to see.  (If the tree looks familiar, Rich featured it in previous blog here.)–Cyndi

December 26, 2012

We just got back from Whangarei where we ran across one of Dashew’s FPB boats on the dock.  I guess the FPB stands for “Fast Power Boat” but that makes little sense to me since they cruise at about 11 knots – not fast at all compared to the cruising speed of some boats this big.  But this design really interests me.  It is a true ocean crossing power boat.  I’d very much like to build something like this, but smaller, slower and much less expensive.  I wrote a little article a while back introducing my ideas for our next boat: Sailing Sucks

Update: We received a nice email from Todd Rickard, the program manager for FPB Yachts.  He points out that FPB might more appropriately stand for “Fast Passage Boat” and with that, I couldn’t agree more.  It would be a dream to make an ocean crossing at 10 knots.  Our 22 day passage from Los Angeles to the Marquesas (5.4 knots average speed) would have taken just under 12 days at 10 knots.  That’s a huge difference and it would make weather planning much easier.  Todd writes more:

Being able to average 10 knots on an offshore passage is, as you know, fast.  The John Deere 6 cylinder diesel (236hp) burns just over 5 gallons/hr at that speed, giving us a potential range at that speed of over 6,000 nautical miles.  The FPB 64’s “get-home” drive (110hp Yanmar w/ Gori 3-blade) will push the boat comfortably through the water at 6.5-7 knots burning around 2 gallons/hr.

By the way, the boat in the picture is Tiger.  A very impressive boat!

December 26, 2012

Tom asked why the stripes at the top of Legacy’s mast?  Here is what I told him:

1. To be able to spot our boat out in the bay, as in this typical conversation on any given night at a local watering hole: “It’s startin’ to blow, how’s our boat doing?”

2. With all the alcohol we seem to consume while cruising, it’s handy for finding  our way back to the correct boat.

3. It makes it easy to give directions as in “Bring the case of wine to E dock and drop it off at the boat with the blue stripes at the top of the mast… you can’t miss it.”

We’ve only seen two other boats with strips on the mast, both in New Zealand and one on our old dock (that we’re moving back to tonight).  Joking aside, they’ve been really handy for both spotting our own boat among a multitude of masts and in helping others find us.

-Rich

December, 2013

There is a very nice, lesser-known excursion in Northland: Taupo Bay. The bay itself is just north of Whangaroa Harbor, but the road to get there is half way between Whangaroa and Mangonui and so is yet another good excuse to detour north to Mangonui for those famous fish and chips.

Taupo Bay will never be on anyone’s “must do” list, and I would not recommend it for anyone short on time. But it’s a nice excursion of you’re staying in the Bay of Islands for awhile, a beautiful stretch of white sand beach devoid of tourists. –Cyndi

December 2013

The Karikari Estate winery restaurant sits perched on a hill with a sweeping view of the north Karikari Peninsula coastline. It is one of the more upscale wineries in Northland, associated with the small Peppers Carrington Golf Resort nearby. Our goal was to have lunch here and do a wine tasting, but it was the height of the Christmas/summer holiday season, a time when places like this get booked well in advance.

We found the entry drive closed off and a sign that said “Estate Booked,” but we were hungry and determined, thus in denial, and figured maybe “Estate Booked” meant the resort was full. There was another driveway that was opened for cars to come out (aka the exit); so we drove up like the confused tourists that we were. We managed to find a spot in the full parking lot and headed into the restaurant.

It wasn’t a surprise find the restaurant was booked solid, but one server came up and said they might have something. Soon, he came back and said yes, they have a table for us! They also informed us of a 15% surcharge to eat here at this time of year (which we knew some popular restaurants charge during the holiday season), but we were hungry enough that we didn’t care about the surcharge.

Back in the mid-80s when I visited here, my picture of a typical New Zealand afternoon featured a farmer fixing his fence while bored sheep looked on. Now, my picture of New Zealand has become remarkably similar to my image of Napa or Tuscany: groups of friends and family sitting alfresco on a sunny afternoon, enjoying fine dining and generous glasses of local, good-quality wine. The outdoor dining area of this restaurant was that image come to life, but we were led past it to an area off to the side where a large tent stood. It was obviously meant for a wedding or special occasion, but they had set up a table for two right at the edge. It was just at the crest of a hill, with an amazing view of the vineyards, trees and fields stretched out below us and the coastline with its large white sand dunes off to the side. What a surreal landscape, what did it remind me of? Strangely, of the background of the Mona Lisa.

I planned to have the wine tasting plate, a sample of 5 or 6 wines, but the menu boasted that their Wild Chardonnay, not part of the tasting, had the flavor of the natural yeasts abundant in this vineyard. Since I am a sucker for a yeasty chardonnay, I opted for that. I was not disappointed: it was fabulous.

We also ordered the seafood pizza, which was really good, and more wine. For dessert we split the sundae which had 6 scoops of ice cream made up of 3 flavors (strawberry, chocolate and jamoca) and chocolate sauce. What a treat! It had been well worth the price, even with the surcharge, to enjoy this place today. –Cyndi