A long weekend in paradise
A few weekends ago we had a long weekend, so Aric, Tom, Natalie and I took a tiny plane to a far, far away tropical island known as Great Barrier Island. When I say far, far away, it's just to make it sound all romantic - it's actually only a 30 min flight on an tiny little plane - though a bit further if you decide to take the ferry - about 4-5 hours depending on sea conditions.
The plane journey over is delightful - it takes off from Auckland airport, but it's all very relaxed with no baggage or security screenings and you get on a golf cart to be take all of 20 metres to the plane. Flying over Auckland is really cool - I know it's a watery city, but seeing it from the air makes you appreciate the vastness of it all - there's water in all directions!!
We flew over lots of little islands before making our descent over beautiful beaches and landing next to the runway at Claris airport - I am assuming the landing on the grass was intentional and not that our pilot missed it accidentally.
We picked up our bags, paid for our hire car and Natalie and Tom dropped Aric and I off at the track head for the Aotea track, where we began a 2 day hike whilst they went and explored the island by car and checked into their airbnb.
The hike we did was 7 hours on day 1 and 3 hours on day 2 (the trip is recommended as a 3 day one but we didn't want to spend all our time hiking). Luckily the weather played ball and though predicted temperatures were 16 degrees high, it was a lot warmer than that (Aric's thermometer on his bag reading a balmy 21degrees!). Day one started off as a beautiful track following an old tram line in the bush, before opening out onto a forestry road which undulated for a few hours or so. It was deliciously silent, with only Tuis and Fantails to be heard, and we were enjoying the solitude, when suddenly, round the corner, a man appeared, wearing a wig, dressed in a bright pink workout dress, running up the hill. Very bizarre.
We continued onwards, stopping at the first hut for a little rest, and marvelling at Mother Nature - parts of the original pathway had been destroyed by landslides and we crossed bridges over tiny streams which had giant tree trunks and debris in them - hard to imagine the forces of water to have caused all of that!!!! Before finally - the steps from hell. I hate steps. They seemed never ending and painful. My calves were crying. At least the views were good - but my morale was quickly depleting with every lift of my legs. Aric was a trooper and silently continued upwards, encouraging me and not getting annoyed at my slowness and constant 'wait, are there more steps?' each time he went off ahead of me.
Finally, we reached the top of the mountain - well when I say top, there was a 50m 2 minute detour to the actual summit of Mt Hobson - but we both looked at each other and shook our heads resoundingly - we were too dead to even contemplate 2 more minutes of uphill. Plus, we could hear music blaring from the top, accompanied by excitable girls voices - so it wouldn't have been very peaceful anyways. We later discovered it was a group of 19 year old Argentinian girls, Aric remarking that 'there is a time and a place for 19 year old Argentian girls, but that just wasn't one of them'.
We began our descent to the hut, each corner we turned I assumed it would be there, but it wasn't - until, suddenly there it was!!!!! - and I nearly cried with relief. When I checked the bookings earlier on in the week, we were the only ones booked on, so we were pretty gutted to discover a couple already there, all settled in over a cup of tea. I was so tired I collapsed on the deck outside and lay there for 20 minutes whilst Aric was the social one and chatted to the couple. They were doing the same hike but were doing the 3 day version, hence being a lot fresher and getting to the hut earlier than us. Eventually I regained some energy (seriously I was so dead) and we sat on the deck in the sun chatting to the couple and drinking beers we had brought with us - it was wonderful. The views are AMAZING.
An hour or so later another guy joined us and foolishly, even though this is LITERALLY THE FIRST RULE OF STAYING IN HUTS - we hadn't claimed our bunks, and there were 2 bunkrooms, and the couple were already in one and the guy chose the other one, so we had the awkward decision of deciding if we wanted to bunk with the couple or the old man. We chose the couple and hoped they wouldn't mind!
We ate our dinner watching the sunset, then sat outside in the dark star spotting and listening to the Jurassic Park like screeches of the Kaka (a brown parrot) flying overhead.
The next day we woke bright and early, had a breakfast of porridge, marvelled at the view again before packing up and heading down - we had agreed to meet Natalie and Tom at the natural hot pools which were about 3/4 of the way back down. The walk down was lots more steps, but at least down this time (though our legs did start to wobble a little bit) before flattening out along a very pretty board walk over some wetland. We bumped into Natalie and Tom, who greeted us with 'oh, we thought about bringing you a packed lunch but decided not to' - THANKS GUYS! (it's the thought that counts) and had a well deserved soak in the shallow but moderately hot, hot pools.
Making it back to the car in one piece, we drove to a cafe called My Fat Puku and fuelled up before heading back to our airbnb - which was AMAZING. Partly chosen for its name (Shark Alley - how could Aric resist?) but also because the views were immense. Getting there was a bit of a pain - it's the other side of a little estuary, so unless you have a 4x4 to drive across, you have to park up and walk over the pedestian bridge, then walk another 15 minutes along a gravel road and up a steep driveway - but it is worth it.
We went down to the beach to explore - a mere 4 minute walk to a gorgeous semi private bay, and contemplated a swim. We did that thing when it's pretty cold and so you inch in and scream every time a wave gets a bit higher than before, and were about to just take the plunge when Aric shouted 'stop' and pointed out an Eagle Ray directly below us - right where we were about to jump in. Good spot! Wouldn't have wanted to have trodden on that. That put me off swimming (I was on the on the edge anyways due to the temperature) so I quickly backed out and settled for paddling in the shadows, and on closer inspection we saw 6 more rays sunbathing - how cool!
The following day we hopped into the car to explore more of the island, starting off with breakfast in Tryphena on the south of the island. We found a delightful but super expensive cafe (everything is expensive here as it's all shipped/flown across from Auckland - we filled up our car at the end of the trip and half a tank of fuel cost $95!!) before heading to Cape Barrier, a southern spot on the island where back in the olden days men used to catch migrating humpback whales. A lot of roads of GBI are gravel, so we were making our way down a remote gravel road when suddenly we came across a guy collapsed on the hood of his car, and a car hanging precariously over the edge behind his, and some people wandering around like zombies. We were freaking out a bit as we thought something terrible had happened so asked a guy who was conscious and hanging around if everything was OK, and he was very unconcerned and said the crashed car had been there ages and everything was fine. Weird. So we carried on and went for a lovely little walk and tried to spot some whales but there were none (probably because all the Whalers killed them all) and on the way back luckily the collapsed guy and his car was gone (we think he was just resting) and we overheard locals later talking about the epic party in the area we were in so I think everyone was either hungover or high or both.
We drove to Port Fitzroy as we heard there's a Kauri tree you can go up in - there's a really cool bush walk to get to it, but sadly (and really we should have guessed this given what's happening in Auckland) the Kauri tree was closed off to the public due to Kauri dieback. Completely understandable but a bit sad as they've build a little swingbridge to the top of the tree which would have been really cool to have gone in.
Our last day was spent climbing up the little mound of land behind our airbnb for stunning sea views, then driving to some mermaid pools for a little dip (essentially a large, completely clear rockpool) then brunch and sunbathing on a completely deserted beach despite it being a bank holiday and the weather being beautiful - where was everyone?!
We boarded our little plane back to Auckland and landed with a bump back to reality.
GBI is a great little weekend trip - it's so small you probably wouldn't want to go for more than a few days (unless you're wanting somewhere to completely switch off and relax - because the island is so far away from the mainland, everything is off the grid so mobile reception and wifi is limited and power is solar in a lot of places - and the main town consists of a few eateries, a gift shop, an art gallery and a petrol station). We flew with Fly My Sky and ended up paying for the expensive flight tickets because we booked pretty late, but we got 20kg of luggage whereas the cheaper tickets have less. The flights are also completely refundable up to 24hr of departure, which is really great if the weather isn't looking so good. We hired a car from Claris Airport Rentals and got a tidy Rav4 for $60 a day - really reasonable, and worth shopping around as other car rentals were more expensive.
The plane journey over is delightful - it takes off from Auckland airport, but it's all very relaxed with no baggage or security screenings and you get on a golf cart to be take all of 20 metres to the plane. Flying over Auckland is really cool - I know it's a watery city, but seeing it from the air makes you appreciate the vastness of it all - there's water in all directions!!
We flew over lots of little islands before making our descent over beautiful beaches and landing next to the runway at Claris airport - I am assuming the landing on the grass was intentional and not that our pilot missed it accidentally.
We picked up our bags, paid for our hire car and Natalie and Tom dropped Aric and I off at the track head for the Aotea track, where we began a 2 day hike whilst they went and explored the island by car and checked into their airbnb.
The hike we did was 7 hours on day 1 and 3 hours on day 2 (the trip is recommended as a 3 day one but we didn't want to spend all our time hiking). Luckily the weather played ball and though predicted temperatures were 16 degrees high, it was a lot warmer than that (Aric's thermometer on his bag reading a balmy 21degrees!). Day one started off as a beautiful track following an old tram line in the bush, before opening out onto a forestry road which undulated for a few hours or so. It was deliciously silent, with only Tuis and Fantails to be heard, and we were enjoying the solitude, when suddenly, round the corner, a man appeared, wearing a wig, dressed in a bright pink workout dress, running up the hill. Very bizarre.
We continued onwards, stopping at the first hut for a little rest, and marvelling at Mother Nature - parts of the original pathway had been destroyed by landslides and we crossed bridges over tiny streams which had giant tree trunks and debris in them - hard to imagine the forces of water to have caused all of that!!!! Before finally - the steps from hell. I hate steps. They seemed never ending and painful. My calves were crying. At least the views were good - but my morale was quickly depleting with every lift of my legs. Aric was a trooper and silently continued upwards, encouraging me and not getting annoyed at my slowness and constant 'wait, are there more steps?' each time he went off ahead of me.
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| Walking over a landslide |
Finally, we reached the top of the mountain - well when I say top, there was a 50m 2 minute detour to the actual summit of Mt Hobson - but we both looked at each other and shook our heads resoundingly - we were too dead to even contemplate 2 more minutes of uphill. Plus, we could hear music blaring from the top, accompanied by excitable girls voices - so it wouldn't have been very peaceful anyways. We later discovered it was a group of 19 year old Argentinian girls, Aric remarking that 'there is a time and a place for 19 year old Argentian girls, but that just wasn't one of them'.
We began our descent to the hut, each corner we turned I assumed it would be there, but it wasn't - until, suddenly there it was!!!!! - and I nearly cried with relief. When I checked the bookings earlier on in the week, we were the only ones booked on, so we were pretty gutted to discover a couple already there, all settled in over a cup of tea. I was so tired I collapsed on the deck outside and lay there for 20 minutes whilst Aric was the social one and chatted to the couple. They were doing the same hike but were doing the 3 day version, hence being a lot fresher and getting to the hut earlier than us. Eventually I regained some energy (seriously I was so dead) and we sat on the deck in the sun chatting to the couple and drinking beers we had brought with us - it was wonderful. The views are AMAZING.
An hour or so later another guy joined us and foolishly, even though this is LITERALLY THE FIRST RULE OF STAYING IN HUTS - we hadn't claimed our bunks, and there were 2 bunkrooms, and the couple were already in one and the guy chose the other one, so we had the awkward decision of deciding if we wanted to bunk with the couple or the old man. We chose the couple and hoped they wouldn't mind!
We ate our dinner watching the sunset, then sat outside in the dark star spotting and listening to the Jurassic Park like screeches of the Kaka (a brown parrot) flying overhead.
The next day we woke bright and early, had a breakfast of porridge, marvelled at the view again before packing up and heading down - we had agreed to meet Natalie and Tom at the natural hot pools which were about 3/4 of the way back down. The walk down was lots more steps, but at least down this time (though our legs did start to wobble a little bit) before flattening out along a very pretty board walk over some wetland. We bumped into Natalie and Tom, who greeted us with 'oh, we thought about bringing you a packed lunch but decided not to' - THANKS GUYS! (it's the thought that counts) and had a well deserved soak in the shallow but moderately hot, hot pools.
Making it back to the car in one piece, we drove to a cafe called My Fat Puku and fuelled up before heading back to our airbnb - which was AMAZING. Partly chosen for its name (Shark Alley - how could Aric resist?) but also because the views were immense. Getting there was a bit of a pain - it's the other side of a little estuary, so unless you have a 4x4 to drive across, you have to park up and walk over the pedestian bridge, then walk another 15 minutes along a gravel road and up a steep driveway - but it is worth it.
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| Enjoying the bach view (that's a pun btw) |
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| Photo credit: Tom Hoagland - our bach even had its own maze.... |
The following day we hopped into the car to explore more of the island, starting off with breakfast in Tryphena on the south of the island. We found a delightful but super expensive cafe (everything is expensive here as it's all shipped/flown across from Auckland - we filled up our car at the end of the trip and half a tank of fuel cost $95!!) before heading to Cape Barrier, a southern spot on the island where back in the olden days men used to catch migrating humpback whales. A lot of roads of GBI are gravel, so we were making our way down a remote gravel road when suddenly we came across a guy collapsed on the hood of his car, and a car hanging precariously over the edge behind his, and some people wandering around like zombies. We were freaking out a bit as we thought something terrible had happened so asked a guy who was conscious and hanging around if everything was OK, and he was very unconcerned and said the crashed car had been there ages and everything was fine. Weird. So we carried on and went for a lovely little walk and tried to spot some whales but there were none (probably because all the Whalers killed them all) and on the way back luckily the collapsed guy and his car was gone (we think he was just resting) and we overheard locals later talking about the epic party in the area we were in so I think everyone was either hungover or high or both.
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| New Zealand colours are so saturated, I love it! |
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| Whale spotting |
We drove to Port Fitzroy as we heard there's a Kauri tree you can go up in - there's a really cool bush walk to get to it, but sadly (and really we should have guessed this given what's happening in Auckland) the Kauri tree was closed off to the public due to Kauri dieback. Completely understandable but a bit sad as they've build a little swingbridge to the top of the tree which would have been really cool to have gone in.
Our last day was spent climbing up the little mound of land behind our airbnb for stunning sea views, then driving to some mermaid pools for a little dip (essentially a large, completely clear rockpool) then brunch and sunbathing on a completely deserted beach despite it being a bank holiday and the weather being beautiful - where was everyone?!
We boarded our little plane back to Auckland and landed with a bump back to reality.
GBI is a great little weekend trip - it's so small you probably wouldn't want to go for more than a few days (unless you're wanting somewhere to completely switch off and relax - because the island is so far away from the mainland, everything is off the grid so mobile reception and wifi is limited and power is solar in a lot of places - and the main town consists of a few eateries, a gift shop, an art gallery and a petrol station). We flew with Fly My Sky and ended up paying for the expensive flight tickets because we booked pretty late, but we got 20kg of luggage whereas the cheaper tickets have less. The flights are also completely refundable up to 24hr of departure, which is really great if the weather isn't looking so good. We hired a car from Claris Airport Rentals and got a tidy Rav4 for $60 a day - really reasonable, and worth shopping around as other car rentals were more expensive.
Looks a bit like Aussie Bush. Glad you had a good time! Cath
ReplyDeleteThank you :)
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