Big City and Beyond to Northland

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Looking down at the Firth of Thames

One guy told us that he has lived his whole life on the North Island, but has never visited Auckland.  He avoids it at all costs.  And he says he can tell if someone is a resident of this largest city in the country.  They have a different attitude about them.

So on this day, we intended to get through Auckland on our way to the Bay of Islands.  There is no other way to drive there without passing through the metropolis.  It was hard to tell from some of the roadways that we were getting close.  We came down the west side of the Coromandel Peninsula and experienced more hills, sheep and wildness.  We took a shortcut, according to the map, and ended up on a gravel road on which we passed only 15 cars in about 25 miles.

Auckland Sky Tower

The western side of ths Coromandel is bounded by the Firth of Thames.  “Firth” - what could that be?  Thames sounded British and a “firth” is defined as “a narrow inlet of the sea” but I don’t guess we have any in the U.S.  Thames is a cute little town where we stopped to cash some traveler’s checks (cheques) at the post shop (office).  No fees are charged here.

From Thames, we journeyed westward towards Auckland, which is up and over some hills and squeezed between several bays, firths, rivers and oceans.  At some point the highways fork and one road leads south to Hamilton and the other north to Auckland and the Northland.  (You can tell you are headed north if the signs direct to Cape Reinga, the northernmost outpost in the country.)  From there the highway turns into a freeway, expressway or motorway with exits, medians, lots of signs, big trucks and multiple lanes.  Before long we passed the airport exits and came in sight of the Sky Tower, a landmark for the central city.

The highway goes up and over a major water body, probably an access to the port of Auckland, and continues to the northern suburbs.  We feared another Seattle of congestion, but were pleasantly surprised to get through the city unscathed.  Another 20 km or so and we were back to a two lane highway with occasional three lanes for passing, and beautiful hills with sheep, cattle and flowers.

Scandrett homestead concrete house

We’ve noticed signs and offices designated as iSites.  Every city and town seems to have one and many of them also advertise public toilets.  The offices are staffed with helpful people who answer questions about the area, recommend accommodations and attractions and also make bookings if necessary.  We pulled into a town named Warkworth and dropped in to the iSite office to ask about accomodations.  Not only did the lady recommend a motel, she also booked a room for us and accepted a 10% deposit.  (I assume that was her “finder fee” for booking the room.  So we headed for Snells Beach, a 10-minute drive to the east, where we were told we would have a view of the sea from the Snells Beach Motel.

Farm buildings

Snells Beach was named for the Snell family who settled here some years ago.  One of their family is Peter Snell, an athlete of some sort, who now lives in the U.S.  It appears to be a bedroom community with modest homes and small shops along the highway.

We were greeted by a friendly lady, whom I think is one of the owners.  She was sad to hear that we were only there for the night because there was much to see in the area.  The next morning, her husband, the other owner recommended three places to visit before we left town.  One was Scott’s landing, a boat launch site at the very tip of a long peninsula of land which stretches out into the sea.  The second was an historic farm which is now a regional park.  We found it to be very fascinating.

George Scandrett arrived from Ireland in 1863 and began farming at this remote spot at Mullet Point which looks out over Kawau Bay.  It was a land of steep hills, a beautiful waterfront, and a place to farm and raise a family.  The family carried on farming here for the next 140 years.  In the process, they built an unusual farmhouse out of concrete, and then added other farm buildings for cows, sheep, chickens, farm implements and the family boats.  Transport back then was by water and the boatshed was equipped with a winch and rails on which the boat could be moved easily to the water.

Public toilets

All of these buildings have been preserved and can be seen by visitors to the Scandrett Regional Park.  Several houses on the property can be rented as vacation homes.  There is a campground for campers and RV’s.  It’s fun to think about life and its challenges back in those days.  There were no doubt times when the beautiful scenery was forgotten when compared to the daily rigors of life on the farm.

We enjoyed another sheep stop and Sheep World.  No show this time, but we found a couple of gifts in the gift store, a bowl of clam chowder and hokey pokey ice cream in the cafe.  And then it was on to Kawakawa and the Hundertwasser’s Toilets.

There is much to be said about Friedensreich Undertwasser, a 25-year resident of Kawakawa.  He was a noted architect and ecologist who moved to New Zealand and bought a farm near Kawakawa in 1975.  In 1997 he was commissioned to design and build public toilets on the main street of his adopted city.  The brochure describes his final work:

“The Kawakawa toilet block with its ceramic columns, garden roof and curving, colourful exuberance has put the Northland town of Kawakawa on the international tourist route and travelers from around the world pay homage to the man and his unique, architectural charm.”

I admit that using a public toilet has not been so enjoyable for a long time.

School kids made the tiles