2006/05 NZ trip - Pahi |
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We took a side trip down to the coast at Muriwai Beach, famous for its gannet colony. Unfortunately, the gannets, like the penguins, aren’t at home in the winter. 
The gannets were off doing their thing in Australia and wouldn’t return until springtime. The scenery though was gorgeous, a large sweeping bay of chocolate-coloured sand, tumultuous surf, and a sheer headland and sea stack rising from the waves. These cliffs house the gannets in the breeding season.
We had fine weather for a walk over the cliff tops to the Takapu Refuge but heavy rain set in as we came back and it stayed with us for a couple of hours, while we were driving north. There are fewer people and many more sheep and cattle in this area. The vegetation on the hills has been cropped short and the grass is an amazing glowing green.
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We camped for the night at Pahi, down on the coast again, but this time on a backwater of Kaipara Harbour, a place with little wind and serenely calm water. Pahi is a quiet little village, and we were the only campers down there on the quay. It’s famous for 
its enormous fig tree, a Moreton Bay fig from the Brisbane area of Australia. The campground also had some giant Norfolk Island pines, the biggest we’d seen, but getting a bit ratty in their old age. The campground’s grass area was under water, and it was being harvested by a large flock of oyster catchers. We’d never seen them in such a large group before.
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Pahi (2.15) |  |
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