Days 8 - 12

Day 8 – Dec. 10 - Russell to Cable Bay, Golf at Kauri Cliffs

The owners of Villa du Fresne, where we’ve been staying, flew an American flag from their flagpole so all the neighbors would know who’s staying there . I wondered if that was a good idea, seeing as how the image of America has been so tarnished over the past 8 years. Truth is, the NZ-ers understand that the government and the people are not the same thing, and they mostly love the Americans they’ve met, wherever they’ve encountered them. Some said they’d never travel to America as long as Bush was president. All ask us what we think of Obama, how we think he’ll get us out of the mess we’re in, and all sorts of other questions best left out of this discussion. In general, everyone we’ve met feels very hopeful about the upcoming change in administration.

Maureen, the owner of Villa du Fresne, usually fixes breakfast for her guests, but last week she was in a hardware store and an ax handle fell off a shelf and bonked her on the head. Ever since, she’s had a headache and hasn’t felt up to cooking. She said nobody sues anybody here for things like that. There’s a government fund for things like that, and the hardware store paid for all the expenses related to the ‘bonk’, and the health care is basically free.

Before we left, we did some research on NZ golf courses and the names Kauri Cliffs and Cape Kidnappers kept coming up, with the added info that they were very expensive. Well, now here we are, as close as we’re ever going to get to Kauri Cliffs, and we have to figure out if we’re going to bite the bullet and play it or not. This is probably the only time in our lives we’ll have the opportunity. But it’s about $600 for the round for us two. We debated at some length about playing and in the end, we justified it by saying it would be my early birthday present (my b’day is in 2 days). We called the course to see if we could get a tee time. ‘Whenever you want one’ Can you put somebody with us? ‘No, the only other people playing today besides you is a couple who like to play alone.’ Do you think somebody else might show up to play with us? ‘No, we don’t get drop-ins here.’ My gosh, are we going to play golf by ourselves for 3 months???

We drove for many miles through beautiful, uninhabited pasture country, coming to realize why nobody ‘drops in’ here. It’s in the middle of freakin-nowhere. Finally we got to the turnoff and went down a dusty dirt road for several miles and dead-ended in a claypit Turned around and a mile or so back saw a tiny road with a tiny sign for the course. Down that road another mile was a closed gate with a phone next to it. The guy who I’d talked with earlier answered and opened the gate remotely for us. When we pulled into the parking lot, which had about 6 cars in it, prolly mostly employees, he met us in a golf cart and chatted with us all the time we got out stuff together. It was prolly a break in the monotony for him.

From the driving range we hit balls (for which we had to pay extra!) into one of the most spectacular views on earth. And the views from every hole on the course were so breath-taking that it took us an extra half-hour or so because of all the photo ops. The course architect made 46 trips from Florida to complete the design. That’s a lot of hours in the air. I imagine Julian Robertson, the Wall Street magnate who built both these great courses sent his private jet for him. But based on the play it appears to get, he must have created them for the tax write-offs. Great course, beautiful weather, worth every penny!

Drove on down the road to a lovely little resort town called Cable Bay and got a room at the Driftwood Lodge right on the beach. Took a walk on the sand and out in the water in front of our motel we saw some black fins about 3-feet high slicing through the water. Turned out to be a pod of about 10 orca whales and they frolicked for about a half-hour right in front of us, rolling, blowing, and breaching. What a sight!!

Day 9 – Dec. 11 – lounging in Cable Bay

Decided to take a day off from traveling, so we’re staying put here for another night. When we finally rolled out of bed, we found out we’d missed seeing about 60 dolphins playing out in front of the motel for about an hour before we got up. Spent the whole day reading, walking on the beach, and relaxing. The highlight of the day was tossing a loaf of moldy bread into the air right into the gaping maws of about 100 seagulls that surrounded us as soon as they saw free food. They would hover right above our heads, and when I made eye contact with one, I tossed a piece right at him. They are the most agile of birds! No matter if I threw it above, below, or behind them, they’d swoop down, soar up, or turn themselves inside out to get behind them for the tidbit. We spent a delightful 15 minutes in pretty intimate contact with these entertaining creatures.

This motel has its own water system, as do all of the buildings in this hamlet. They have gutters all around the roofs that funnel down into one pipe that goes out to a huge cistern that collects the rainwater. I asked if they then filter the leaves and bugs out of it before it goes into the house? ‘Oh, no, we drink it, bugs and all. When we go to the other islands, we never catch anything because we’ve built up immunities to everything.’ Yuk.

Cable Bay got its name from the fact that a telephone cable was laid by ship from Australia to this place in 1902!!

Had one of the best Thai meals we’ve ever had anywhere in a lovely town of Mangonui, which means big shark.

Day 10 – Dec. 12 – my birthday; Cable Bay to Rangiputa

Well, today is my 65th birthday, and we began the celebration with eggs Benedict for breakfast at a café right on the beach. Then we played golf at Carrington Resort, another deserted course. I don’t see how these courses stay in business. Again, there wasn’t a soul around for us to play with, and we didn’t see anybody else on the course until we were teeing off on #18. It was another excellent course, though not quite the caliber of Kuari Cliffs.

My birthday lunch was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich eaten on #12.

We drove to a place out on a peninsula that the owners of the Driftwood Lodge had recommended – the Reef Motel in Rangiputa. Went for a walk on a crescent beach about 3 miles long. Started at one end and walked to the other end and back. Took 2 hours. In the middle of walk we came upon the only other people on the beach, about 8 Maoris in bathing suits sitting in 2 cars on the beach. As we walked up, they greeted us, solemnly, and the oldest one, grizzled and toothless, told us they had been swimming and one of their friends got separated from them, and got swept out to sea by an undertow. It had been 2 hours since he’d been gone, and they were sure he was dead. They were waiting for his body to wash up on shore. Further down the beach we came upon the only other people on the beach – 2 policemen who were in contact with a Coast Guard boat which was cruising up and down the shore looking for the body.

As we walked we kept scanning the surf for a dead body. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see it. About an hour later the Coast Guard boat stopped, right out from the Maori party, and spent about 15 minutes leaning over the edge. When we got back to the Maoris, they said the Coast Guard had found the body and were trying to pull it into the boat. After they did, they pulled away at full speed, headed for the harbor at Mangonui. That experience was a first for both of us. My birthday, his death day.

Rangiputa is miles from nowhere. We wanted to celebrate my birthday with a nice meal, but by the time we got back to the motel, it was already 7 pm and the closest town with a restaurant was nearly an hour away. So I ate a peanut butter and smashed banana sandwich, with a glass of tomato juice and a few squares of Hershey bar, then watched ‘Bad News Bears’ on tv.

Day 11 – Dec. 13 – Cape Reinga, Ahipara

Had to get up at 6 am to catch a tour bus. It picked us up at one of the tourist stops, the Ancient Kauri Kingdom, which was a repository for a collection of old kauri stumps. Before the Europeans came, the entire northern half of the north island was covered in forests of kauri trees. They are HUGE trees, like the redwoods, as big as 15 feet in diameter and a couple of hundred feet tall. Their wood is soft and workable like pine and their grain is straight, making it good for furniture, boats, and masts of ships. The Maoris hollowed them out to make their canoes. Once the Europeans found out how marketable these trees were, they set about chopping them down and selling them all over the world. Today there are only a few left and they’re protected.

In addition to the trees’ wood, they secreted a sap that was found to make excellent varnish. So the Europeans harvested this ‘gum’, too. Once they ran out of the living trees for wood and gum, they investigated a bunch of stumps they found sticking out of the ground. Turns out that twice in ancient history, once 150,000 years ago and again 45,000 years ago, great cataclysms occurred to destroy most life on New Zealand. Tsunamis caused by earthquakes or meteors hitting the earth washed over the islands, breaking off the trees and leaving their stumps in the ground. Erosion has covered up many of the stumps, but many are still visible, nearly fossilized after so long in the swamps. Because the kauri wood is so prized, it is worth it to spend the money to winch these 150-ton behemoths out of the swamps, clean them up and sell them. The gum was also worth reclaiming for a while during the early part of the 20th century, though it was back-breaking work. With the advent of man-made products to do the same job for lots less money, the trade dried up. The holes left in the ground from digging out the gum are everywhere, and now the landowners charge the bus tours money to bring the hordes by to see the holes, the shacks the gum-diggers lived in, and the tools they used.
The Maoris own the entire north end of the island, which is almost entirely pastures full of sheep and cows. We even saw a bunch of wild turkeys and some emus – the large flightless birds - standing in a field. The land grew more and more rugged as we got further north. Finally, the road became steeper and curvier and suddenly we were on top of the world, at the northernmost point of land in the country. At the tip of the peninsula sat a lighthouse, serving no purpose any more except for fodder for photographs, as all the ships use GPS now. This is the place where the blue-green Tasman Sea meets the gray waters of the Pacific, and it’s a dramatic demarcation.

Sand dunes comprise a lot of the northern landscape, several hundred feet tall and very steep in places. At one spot the bus stopped, we all climbed out, the brave and/or young each grabbed one of the plastic ‘sleds’ being handed out by the driver, and we clawed our way up to the top of one of the highest and steepest dunes. When we got to the top, we sat down, pushed off, and, using our hands behind us as brakes and steering, went flying down the face of the dune, screaming all the way, while sand flying up from our hands poured down the backs of our shirts and filled our hair.

We befriended one of the other couples on the bus, Maureen and Peter Morrow, originally from Capetown, South Africa, and now living in Auckland. At each stop we would gravitate together, until by the end of the day we’d become fast friends. We spent the night at the same campground at Ahipara, us in a cabin, they in their tent. We went to dinner together at the Bayview Restaurant, overlooking the water, and I finally got my birthday dinner – a very tasty Scotch fillet steak, french fries (served with EVERYTHING here), and cheesecake. He’s a 10-handicap golfer, so we had a long conversation about golf.

Day 12 – Dec. 14 – Ahipara to Omopere, golf with Stefan and Mark

Exchanged addresses with Maureen and Peter and set off for the golf course, which was right next to the campground. We had to tee off in a hurry to get ahead of a tournament group, so we joined a twosome of men. Finally we get to play with somebody!!! Joining up with them resulted in today’s being a 10. The layout was a links course, with narrow, undulating, winding fairways, true greens. A brisk wind wrought havoc with our tee shots. Some of the fairways were completely covered with little 1-inch high sand piles made by black flies that filled the air. These little hills were so thick sometimes there were only 2-3 inches between them, thousands to a fairway. Those fairways had little grass on them. And then other fairways had no fly hills at all. Go figure.

The men we joined, Mark and Stefan, were delightful. Lots of light-hearted banter bounced around among us all. After our round, we sat out on the deck for about an hour and discussed the U.S. economy, politics, China, the Iraq war, Obama, golf, and about everything you can cover in an hour. When Stefan disappeared for a break, Mark told us that Stefan came over from England and paid the highest price for a house that has ever been sold in the Northland, right on the bay in Mangonui. ‘He’s a bazillionaire, probably the richest man in the Northland’, Mark told us. And one of the nicest I’ve ever met.

They told us that we’d seen almost everything the Northland has to offer, and their suggestion is to boogie on down to the South Island and spend the rest of our vacation down there. We still have a couple of things to see, but we’ve mostly seen everything the books say is important. We hopped in the car and headed south down the winding, narrow road at a good clip. Ended up in Omapere at the Copthorne Motel, one of a string of really nice motels in the bigger towns. After the rustic and primitive places we’ve been staying in the past week or so, it seems like the Ritz. Had dinner at the one restaurant that was open on Sunday night, with white linen tablecloths and menus that weren’t greasy. Truth is, I now prefer the laid-back and rustic to this sterile and brand-new place. But I could get used to nice things again.