More from Paradise….

Things have quietened down at the Akapoua campsite.

On Monday my best mate Lynette flew in to Claris for 4 days holiday. She was going to bring her son but he pulled out at the last minute so it was just Lynette.

I had spoken to Brett (my boss) and asked if I could borrow a vehicle to pick her up in, which was not a problem. So Monday morning Brett arrives in a very stinky truck laden with the rubbish and recycling from the barge in the middle of Port FitzRoy Harbour! So in I get and off we go, pausing for a cup of coffee and morning tea at his home at Okiwi. Jo his wife commenting often about the wafting stench…..

As we set off again south Brett casually drops into the conversation “Oh you don’t mind helping unload the rubbish at the recycling depot do you?” So there I was helping to empty about 14 wool sacks and fertiliser bags of recycling and rubbish. What a stench!  Then we headed off to the airstrip and got there just as the plane taxied in. We all had a good laugh about picking Lynette up in the rubbish truck.

We headed down to Medlands Beach to check in down there and had a coffee on the way back at the Claris Texas Cafe. Then meandered our way back to Okiwi, changed vehicles and headed back to Akapoua.

We had a quiet afternoon until Frederick decided that a walk to the waterfall would be good. Bad move!  I had forgotten how unfit Lynette was and nearly exhausted her totally, but she got there and back. It was the stairs that got her.

That was ok, so she slept well that night!

So the following day we wandered down to Port FitzRoy and she picked up a couple of books from the donation box out the front to read. After we got back to the bus, she had decided that she needed a couple of days off…..

So Thursday arrived and we headed off to the annual Mussel Festival. A bit of a celebration of the mussel industry here on the island. A great day despite the slight sprinkling of rain.

		Annual Mussel Fest VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

There was some great local and imported talent over two sites, the lovely reserve and up at the Boat Club. Great food, good music and great company. What more can you ask for. There were mussel fritters, smoked mussels, mussel and bacon kebabs, mussel chowder, and that was just for starters…..

Friday I packed the bus up to head down to Claris to drop Lynette off at the airport to fly home. She (I hope) had a wonderful relaxing time when I wasn’t trying to do her in by exercising her too much!

When we got to Claris I dropped in to see Brett again and he asked if I would mind doing the camp run on the way through and we changed vehicles, went up to the DoC HQ to pick up various foodstuffs, cool pads and radio batteries for the various camp hosts. SO we dropped Brett back at Okiwi and Lynette and I set off towards Claris, stopping at Harataonga. I got about 1/2 way in thinking “Yup I could get the bus down here” until we passed the turn off to the actual campsite. From there the road narrowed to a single land, very, very windy and very tight corners. So no way will I ever attempt to get the bus into Harataonga Camp!

They were very busy there in comparison to me at Akapoua. Must be the beach, lovely swimming beach over there.

Then on to Awana Campsite. Nick wasn’t on site so we had a quick look around at the one camp family he had and headed southwards. Went all the way to Medlands and dropped off the cool packs and frozen stuff for Catherine there and had a look at the family of ducklings that were hogging the water tap!

From there we headed back to the airport only to meet up with a lovely American couple that had stayed at Akapoua for a few days. It turns out that they were flying on the same flight as Lynette!

So now all very quiet in camp. Just one family and one young couple today who I have lent the kayak to to go have a bit of a look around the bay.

		Campers Ahoy! VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Yesterday was a very special day for me. I harvested the first of my tomatoes.

and I ate it with a pork chop and roast potatoes.

A lovely meal if I say so myself.

So we have been having some awesome sunsets here on the island….

		Evening views VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I have also managed to get some great shots of the kereru that have been flying around the bus…

		Kereru VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I have also managed to get some of the pateke or native brown teal

I have been trying to get more of the kaka but they seem to be flying much higher since all the people arrived.

Well I am into my last two weeks of working here, and have started to plan my 10 days before I leave the island.

I am planning to tramp from Akapoua Bay through to the Kaiaraara Hut and from there head along the South Fork track to Mt Heale hut then up to the top of Mt Hobson, out to the road via Palmers Track and Windy Canyon. Then down the road and onto the Tramline Track down to the hot springs at Kaitoke and from there back to Akapou via Tramline, Witheys, Kiwiriki Tracks and the Kaiaraara Hut.

But that may well change…. also want to do the mountain bike trip from Kaiaraara Hut down Forest Road through to Kaitoki and back again.

So that is the update from Aotea Great Barrier Island.

Safe travels everyone.

New Year 2015

So the camp has filled up and the numbers have grown. Have ad up to 66 people in camp, that was Dec 29th.

		Akapoua Bay VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The weather has been on and off, with a great dosing of rain this morning from 5:30am to 7am or so but the day turned wonderful if a bit breezy.
Getting ahead of myself….Have been getting more visits from kereru…

and my lovely neighbours brought me in a pot of pipi which I had for lunch on a couple of cheese buns. Just lovely!

The bay itself has been filling up as well and there are more and more boats of varying sizes arriving.

		The Bay… VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

One of the groups that have arrived is the Auckland University Dive Club and they are a lovely bunch of young people and they have been having fun.

but I have to say that they were very good to me today in brining over a lovely butter fish that I filleted and smoked. They also put some fillets in the smoker at the same time so we ended up with four large fillets, two with brown sugar and sweet chilli sauce marinade, one with a garlic marinade and one plain with no marinade. Absolutely lovely fish. I had the plain and sweet chilli fillets and they were fantastic with a fresh salad from my garden! For those who haven’t seen a butter fish….


The amazing thing is that when you fillet this fish the bones are a lovely green colour and I forgot to take a picture! but a beautiful fish with amazing markings that you don’t catch on a line, only by spear fishing as they are herbivorous.

New Years Eve was an interesting night here, had two groups singing and dancing til about 10:30pm when they all took off to the local club at Port FitzRoy and things got really quiet, until about 12:30am when the first lot got back. They had been swimming at the port and when they got back to camp they showered and there were a bunch of naked people wandering around the camp.....so after shuffling them off to their tents, the oth er group quietly snuck back in around 2:30, picked up their marquee and chilli bin and headed off up the track towards the waterfall and didn't come back til around 8:30am! So a quiet but long night. To top it off someone over in the bay let off some fireworks at around 4am and woke us all up again! Then the rain finally hit at 5:30 for a couple of hours and then it fined up to a lovely day, though still quite breezy, but a good start to the New Year.

One of the great things about doing a job like this is that you meet some really interesting people and I would like to tell you about 4 fascinating characters.
Meet from left to right….
Natasha from Cape Town, Deb from Port Angeles, Washington State, Paula from Wellington and Paul from Montreal.

What makes these people quite interesting is that they have been circumnavigating Great Barrier Island in their kayaks.

They arrived on the ferry in Tryphena, spent the night there and then paddled around the eastern side to Medlands Beach, then on to Harataonga Campsite, around the top of the island through the Needles to Miners Head and then on to us here in Akapoa Bay where they arrived yesterday and stayed today and are heading off down to Whangaparapara tomorrow then back to Tryphena.
But that is not all….. these are some of the worlds authorities on ocean kayaking. In 2008 there was a kayaking symposium held in Auckland under the name of Coast Busters, run by Paul and Natasha, to which Deb was invited to speak. it then progressed on to a International Kayaking Week involving 60 people from all round the world, talking, demonstrating and all having a great time. It appears that I have been in the company of kayaking royalty as it were. But a more lovely group of people would be hard to find. We shared peach crumble, Christmas cake, desert wine, lovely dark chocolate and some stimulating conversation over two evenings and I look forward to meeting up with them somewhere, some time.
So a lovely day dawned this morning and after chores (loos and sinks etc.…) I realised that there were a lot less campers and because of the fact that today was the Medlands Family Picnic Day the camp was emptying fast and before I knew it I was alone in the camp.
A great time to do the washing and seeing as it was going to be a scorcher of a day the bed linen got done as well.

		Laundry Day VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I was quite impressed that I got both top and bottom sheets and the duvet cover and some clothes onto the clothes line! All dry by lunchtime!
While I have been sitting here the kereru have been coming down to play…

		Kereru VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

They are in the pururi tree beside me going for the berries today. The tui are playing as well as the kaka.
The other thing that is really looking good is the pohutukawa as they come into full bloom.

		Pohutukawa VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

So an absolutely lovely day here, slight breeze keeping the heat down a little and not a person in sight!
Safe travels everyone