Day 272 – 30 April 2010: Kayak surfing in Byron Bay

Today I say farewell to Mary and Caz. After being a threesome since mid-March, we are probably ready to go our separate ways for now, but I will miss winding up ‘Sister’ Mary and also Caz’s random moments of hysteria. They are going to Nimbin Mardi Gras, a festival / rally in favour of legalizing cannabis set in the hippy hangout of Nimbin, the capital of the ‘alternative lifestyle’ in Oz. They will then be going on a sailing trip around the Whitsundays, which I am slightly jealous about.

Meanwhile, I move hostel to the Arts Factory, which has been recommended to me as a hostel with a difference, a place where you can take part in painting classes or learn to play the didgeridoo and its attached facilities include a lounge sofa cinema and a recording studio. Not that any of these are come free with the accommodation though. There is also a pool with a jacuzzi, a café and an outdoor bar restaurant and a number of benches and hammocks to lounge about in. There are tepees to sleep in too, but all the spaces are booked when I arrive and I think I would prefer a room anyway, as the tepees are by the restaurant or the camp ground where hundreds of ragged tents are pegged and I don’t think I would get much sleep.

I go for a walk after leaving my luggage at the hostel and, passing through to the south side of town, I spot a van with a trailer of kayaks. This is Byron Bay Sea Kayaks and they advertise themselves as offering a dolphin spotting sea kayaking experience. Although I have already been swimming with dolphins in Kaikoura and seen more at the Bay of Islands while in New Zealand, I am quite keen to see if they will come up close to the kayaks, which may be the best way to interact with them. However, to be honest, I like the look of the waves today and think it will be good fun out there, so I pay my money.

Our trip departs from Clark’s Beach, which is at the south end of Byron. It is the only western facing beach on Australia’s east coast, which may be something of an explanation as to why this is where Byron Bay’s best surf is. The kayaks are two berth and I am sharing mine with Mary Beth, a Canadian and one of our guides. We are the last of the rafts to go out and, with the sizeable swell I watch with a mixture of amusement and impatience as one by one each of the preceding kayaks is capsized and pushed northwards by the tide. I am quite glad to have Mary Beth steering at the stern, as we smugly leap over the waves without incident, except for the banging down once we are over the peak of each one.

The dolphins tend to congregate near ‘The Pass’, the surfing hot spot by the headland that punctuates the end of Clark’s Beach. The surfing today looks spectacular, but we spend a long time hanging around waiting for dolphins come to us, the guides explaining that if we go searching for them they will just swim away. Some people see some diving through the waves in the distance, or at least some of the guides see them in the distance. What I see could be dolphins, or they could be surfers bobbing up and down the swell. There are a couple of tortoises that come swimming near us though, poking their little heads up out of the water.

On the way back to shore, Mary-Beth tells me that we will definitely be going into the water because there is no way the kayaks will stay upright with these size of waves going onto the beach. We catch a nice big one and do manage to surf it for a while by leaning sharply backwards while M-B uses her paddle as the oar trying to keep us straight, but eventually we are rolled over and receive our dunking. This was probably the highlight of the day for me.

Because we haven’t quite had the dolphin spotting experience, I am invited to come back again for the next morning’s trip for no extra charge.

I spend the evening in the Arts Factory bar watching an ageing blues band play to a gradually diminishing and increasingly disinterested post happy hour audience.

a fellow guest at the Arts Factory

and a nonchalant iguana

Byron Bay Train Station...

Day 271 – 29 April 2010: Why NZ is better than Oz, part 32, or...not? To Byron Bay

At check-in, my luggage is still 5kg over the 20kg limit. After transferring some books to my carry on, the assistant lets me check-in with 22kg, another example of a more common sense application of rules that Kiwis seem to apply. If I wasn’t meeting friends over there, I am not sure if I would be looking forward to going back to Australia. I will certainly miss New Zealand, my favourite country so far.

I am still nervous about flying, and am a little hungover from last night, though I learned from my flight to NZ that this wasn’t the best condition for me to be in advance of flying. Though it turns out to be eventless, I am sweaty palmed throughout the flight.

My plan had been to meet up with Janaya, formerly a bar girl at my local pub in Reading. However, I have been unable to get hold of her, so I decide to follow Mary and Caz to Byron Bay, which I wanted to visit anyway.

Still somewhat geographically ignorant of Australia, I had assumed that Byron Bay was on the Gold Coast. For some reason, it is denied the status, being just a wee bit south of it. I have decided that this is a good thing because the leaflets for Gold Coast attractions at the airport information desk are mostly focused on party hardy yoof, which is not what I am looking for right now.

Going through immigration, I am politely pulled aside for a one on one interview with a senior officer who asks me questions about what I have been doing in the countries I have visited over the past nine months. He says that he has a list of countries which bring up a red flag where travellers coming to Australia are concerned, and I have been through most of them.

We go to the Backpackers Inn on the Beach at Byron Bay. I have grown weary of hostel living because, well, I seem too old, but this place has a relaxed feel to it and the beach is just a few steps through greenery away. It also offers free body board hire, so I take one onto the beach, though don’t make use of it. We are on Belongil Beach, the northern beach of Byron, but it is not the best one for waves. It does, however, have a wide selection of young and beautiful bodies on display, and it is not too busy either. I am not sure I belong here though.

I meet up again with Caz and Mary to go to dinner at Fishheads Restaurant by the main beach. I have been told that this is a fantastic fish restaurant, but it turns out to do a nice thick and juicy steak too, as this is what I order. I did have a tuna dish for starter though, and I guess it’s a kind of sushi as it is raw, though not flavoured with wasabi or any Japanese flavourings. It is also quite possibly the best tuna I have ever tasted. Though the food is quite expensive – Caz and Mary order Fish & Chips, at Aus $25 the cheapest thing on the menu – but it’s also a BYO wine, so it works out to be good value for the quality.

Our waitress is an attractive young American female and, when the bill arrives with a space to leave comments, I leave her my phone number, feeling unrealistically optimistic after having a few glasses of wine.

Day 270 – 28 April 2010: the friendly neighbourhood kayak rental office at Waiheke Island

I have arranged to spend my last day in New Zealand kayaking with Heide at Waiheke Island, a half hour ferry ride from Auckland Harbour.

The ferry provides us with a scenic view of Auckland, with the circular Sky Tower standing out as its centre piece. When we arrive at the island and at the kayak rental hut, we are greeted by two men in exceptionally jolly mood. I don’t think they have had many rentals today, as I suspect they have spent much of the day in the pub. One of the men doesn’t even work there.

They ask us if we are two adults or one adult and one child, in a flirty attempt to flatter thirty three year old Heide. It is just past three o’clock and I have hired the kayaks for two hours. They tell us that we absolutely must be back by five o’clock, as the sun sets around then. Or by 5:30 at least.

 The sea is calm around the island, but as we get out of the harbour area, there is lots of rocky coast line, and we do some kayaking between some of the formations that capture swells. This leads to some prangs and some slightly panicky moments as waves shove us through narrow passages until eventually, and inevitably, I capsize. With this, camera number four or five of my trip (I’ve lost count) expires.

We arrive back in the quay just before 5:30 to be told that we are only just in time as they were about to call out the rescue helicopters.

Back in the city and heading towards Heide’s hostel – she has moved to one called ‘Frenz’ after a couple of nights of drunken antics by her roommates at Base - I am still wearing my wet shorts as I walk through the city. In this part of the world this may not be an unfamiliar sight, but I can’t imagine anybody being seen walking through any big city in England with wet swim shorts, so I feel somewhat conspicuous.

I get changed at Heide’s hostel and then meet up with Caz and Mary to go for a Thai dinner, which turns out to be the best Thai meal I have had on this trip, including any I had in Thailand. It’s very good value in comparison to most restaurants in the city too.

We say farewell to Heide over a few drinks before going back to the hostel for a fairly early night. We have to be up at three o’clock tomorrow morning to catch our flight to Australia’s Gold Coast.

New Pictures Part 1: to Milford Sound
New Zealand Part 2

Day 269 – 27 April 2010: city lethargy

Keeping true to form on this trip so far, I don’t really feel like doing anything while in the city, and spend all day on the internet uploading various CDs of photos. Dinner is the last of our leftovers.

Day 268 – 26 April 2010: the last of the lamb

On the way to Auckland, we are shocked to be passed the other way by Olive. Somebody has stolen our van! Well, at least she survived. We reach Auckland for lunch time and stop at Freeman’s B&B again.

Leaving Caz and Mary at the guesthouse, I drive Albert back to the Escape office to give him back, with Heide in charge of map reading. She is staying at the Base Hostel, one of which I had sampled to my detriment in Sydney, where I found the room next door to be occupied by drunk teenagers being sick outside their door. I leave her there to walk the twenty minutes or so back to Freeman’s, arranging to meet up with her for dinner.

Too tired to get up to much today, and with Caz, Mary and I choosing to take a room instead of camping out in the back garden, I take advantage of use of a bed and of free internet. At dinner, we meet up with Heide to find a place that serves lamb, as Mary and I want to taste some fresh NZ sheep one last time before we leave these shores. We find a pub restaurant that serves lamb shank. It is not expensive, although the beer is at $14 a bottle (c. £7).

Afterwards, we went to a bar near the Base Hostel that played loud music preventing any conversation. We quickly decide we are too tired to stay for any more than one drink.

Day 267 – 25 April 2010: giant sands, the hitchhiker, giant trees and still no kiwis

I wake up to the sound of crashing waves.

We leave the campsite and stop at Te Paki sand dunes, and they are a quizzically massive size, which pictures making them look much smaller than they are. They seem to stand alone among the nearby rocky bays, though I suspect these two facts are related, with the sand having nowhere else to go. It takes quite some effort to climb up the dunes, and I lose my crocs several times, but I get up to the top driven by a determination to see the beach on the other side. Spotted among the dunes are islands of evolving rock, which crumble back into sand if hit with a little force.

We debate taking the 90 mile beach route, but the signs say that it is strictly for off road vehicles, and it points out that rental vehicles are not insured to drive on the beach road. Oh well, I am not sure Albert would have made it anyway.

We decide to stay on the west coast on our way back to Auckland though, and we decide to stop off at Waipoua Forest to see the giant kauri trees. On the way, we pick up a German hitchhiker called Heide, a thirty-ish German. She is also going to see the kauri trees and then plans to go onto Auckland, so she ends up camping with us at night.

When we get to the forest, the trees we see are more remarkable for their girth than their height, though the tallest, Tāne Mahuta, has a 17.7m trunk, but is 51m including its branches. It is also between 1,250 and 2,500 years old. The broadest though is Te Matua Ngahere, which has a 16.4m diameter (54 ft), and is about 1,500 years old.

After just catching Hokianga Car Ferry by seconds, we camp at another Dept of Conservation site, where Heide and I take a night walk through the forest, where signs tell us we have the opportunity to see some kiwi birds. Heide has re-iterated that the birds I saw on the South Island were probably Weka (woodhens), though I am still not sure. We have a pleasant walk, but spot no kiwis or wekas, possibly because I can’t resist an urge to do a Tarzan bellow as we walk through the woodland.

the mark at the bottom right is a person

 

Day 266 – 24 April 2010: the northern-most point of New Zealand, or not

Today, we drive to Cape Reigna, the northern tip of the North Island. On the way, we stop for a lunch at another gorgeous looking beach and we pass more odd looking cows. One is what I would like to call a ‘sheep-cow’, with a coat like it has not so recently shorn of its wool.

As we go up and down the winding roads, we ponder how Joost must have felt having to face this route as the last part of this journey.

Views from the road include the world’s largest silica sand beach, which stands like a white lump monolith, and the Te Paki giant sand dunes, behind which runs 90 Mile Beach.

When we get to Cape Reigna and walk to the Lighthouse, the views of the surrounding bays are handsome. This is the point where Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean, although today there are no great whirlpools marking the collision. However, from the information plaques that line the walkway, we learn that the lighthouse doesn’t mark the northern most tip of New Zealand. That would be the Surville Cliffs several kilometres to the east, and which reaches three kilometres north of here.

We camp at the nearby Te Paki Reserves campsite, set on a beach where people are fishing and where trucks towing boats drive right up the edge of the tide.