Kiwis, crisps, lagoons, and sunburns in Bay of Islands (New Zealand #1)

View from the hike up at Mangahawea Bay on Motorua Island

Sooooo I never mentioned it ahead of time, but Henk and I just spent a month in New Zealand!! Get ready - for those of us who have (gradually and begrudgingly) become accustomed to Dutch scenery, it may take a bit of adjusting to the crazy beautiful, varying, dramatic scenery of New Zealand. We went paddling three times, so I'm planning to share three posts with you, and I'll sneak in some of my favorite non-kayaking photos at the end of each post. 

For our first destination, I present you: the Bay of Islands, in the northern tip of New Zealand (-35 deg N)...

We rented boats from Bay of Islands Kayaking, an outfitter in Paihia that does guided trips and rentals. We initially planned to do a two-day overnight trip to the outer islands, staying at the Sunset Bay backcountry beach campsite on Urupukapuka Island. However, jetlag/a fierce headache took over and we delayed our drive north from Auckland by a day. This meant that we only had one day to paddle around, and the company does not allow day trips to the islands (and no begging/convincing/links-to-blogs could change their minds!). Therefore, we caved and joined a tour! This is generally something that I avoid because I like to do my own exploring, and you never know what level of experience to expect. However, they did permit us to take single kayaks while the rest of the group (4 others) took double kayaks, so we got to work a bit harder to keep up! 

​It's been over a month since we took this trip, so the rest of this post comes more or less straight from the handy-dandy Trip Journal.

On the car ferry from Opua to Opiato

The tour guide, a cool lady from the UK (whose name I forgot to note) picked us up near some tennis courts in downtown Paihia. We piled into the van (which had four boats on top) and met three other Americans who would be in our tour. They did not seem particularly excited to be going kayaking in New Zealand - they weren't smiling and didn't get out of the bus to check out the scenery as we took the car ferry from Opua to Opiato. Henk and I were excited and naturally hopped out of the van to enjoy the breeze. Once on the other side, it was a 15 minute drive to Long Beach in Russell (the first European settlement in New Zealand). 

At the launch site on Long Beach in Russell

From Long Beach we made a ~30 minute crossing and headed around the left side of Motuarohia Island before continuing to Motorua Island. Everyone was competent at paddling, and we maintained a straight and speedy (for a tour) pace. 

Making the crossing towards Motuarohia Island

Arriving at the beach on Mangahawea Bay on Motorua Island

On Motorua Island we stopped for an hour to do some exploring. We hiked up a hill for ~10 minutes to a viewpoint, from which we could see many other islands:

Another view from the trail up the hill behind the beach.

We also saw a small family of kiwis. I initially didn't think much of it - it was only our ~3rd day in New Zealand, but when I said "hey there are some kiwis!" the tour guide said "I've been living here for 4 months and have never seen kiwis!" We saw a family of four rustling around in the grass by the information sign (see photo below). They're normally nocturnal, but given the cool cloudy day, they decided to make an appearance. We learned that the kiwi is an endangered, flightless, nocturnal bird that's been reintroduced on a couple of the islands after being wiped out by invasive species (especially rats). 

Kiwis: check!? ​I think this might be the only time I've seen an endangered animal in the wild?

Trail up the hill

Tropical plants!

The elusive kiwi! A clan of them!

Our next stop was Motuarohia Island, where we had a delicious lunch of wraps with cheese/meat/veggies + CRISPS (NZ for potato chips). Apparently chicken-flavoured chips are a thing in NZ, and I fully support it. After lunch we explored the unique double lagoons: 

Panorama of the beach (right) and one of the lagoons (left) on Motuarohia Island

Lunch spot under an ideal tree on Motuarohia Island

In the trip journal we noted a few observations:

• The water was SO CLEAR! It's funny to read this now, because pretty much all water in NZ is so clear
• Some beaches were soft sand and some were very gravely
• We were mesmerized by the wave diffraction patterns in the lagoons
• We saw a dead penguin on a beach (but sadly, no live ones)
• Just after launching off Long Beach, some sort of ray (sting? manta?) - the tour guide promised that rays nearshore were a sign that whale were visiting the islands (no such luck)
• We got sunburned even though we applied sunscreen multiple times - Did you know the famous hole in the ozone we used to hear about in the 80s and 90s is still a problem? We definitely noticed the increased UV exposure on our trip.

Upon returning to the mainland, we loaded four boats on the roof of the van (no easy task) and were driven back to Pahia. From there we continued our 4 week roadtrip, down the west coast of the North Island. Stay tuned for two more posts about kayaking in New Zealand!

For a map and route statistics, scroll to the bottom of this post.

More photos of the North Island: Auckland, Rotorua, Mt. Taranaki, ...

​At the end of each New Zealand post I'll share some of my favorite photos from the nearby regions. 

Date: Friday, December 22nd, 2017
Distance: 15 km (9.3 miles)
Duration: ~5 hours, including two 1-hour stops
Weather: Cool, cloudy with patches of sun (kiwi weather!)