I spent a couple of hours morning of 6th in the central library of Auckland before catching the 12.25pm bus to Thames, a place I’m now very familiar with, arriving at 2.30pm then waited an hour for the ‘shuttle’ bus to Whitianga. There were just four of us on the bus, two of whom got off before me. Loretta, houseowner of this housesit, was waiting for me when the bus arrived just before 5pm.
Loretta is an easy lady to get on with, similar age to me who has lived in her house for 12 years but has recently sold it and bought a house in
Picton on the South Island which she’ll move into on 6th December. I had also agreed to return to housesit for her mid December for a few days when she was going away again but with the house move she had to cancel that holiday, offering to pay for my accommodation which was very kind but not necessary. I told her that it was probably for the best as it meant I didn’t have to return to the same place but could see somewhere else.
My charges are a black miniature poodle called Poppy aged 12 who’s unfortunately going blind and a Birman cat called Chloe aged 13:
The one-storey house is nice and compact with 3 bedrooms. Loretta apologised for the boxes of packing but she had hidden most of them away so that the areas I was to use retained a homely feel. She kindly gave me her bedroom which overlooks her small, neat garden.
As soon as we’d arrived a friend of Loretta’s, Brian aged 89 whose wife had recently died, rolled up and we sat on the covered deck chatting and drinking lager. He’d left England for NZ in his early 20s. After Brian left, Loretta introduced me to her lovely neighbours, located in the house right in front of Loretta’s, Toni and Wayne. They share the same drive and also have their house on the market. Loretta said her house had been on the market for 8 months before selling, one reason it took so long likely being because both properties are subject to a ‘cross lease’ meaning that if she wanted to do anything to the house Toni and Wayne would have to agree and vice versa.
Loretta then took me with Poppy on one of her regular walks. As I don’t have a car here I won’t be able to take Poppy out further afield. In any case she isn’t a great traveller, only usually managing about 30 minute walks, being elderly, and the weather getting warmer. On our return we had a meal and continued chatting. Loretta works 7 days per week, 5 days in admin at the local Marina and weekends cleaning holiday homes. She has done a lot of travelling and would love to go to Madagascar next.
Loretta was catching the 0745 bus to Thames on Thursday morning and from there the bus to Auckland (the reverse journey I’d made) where she was staying the night with friends then flying to Japan on Friday morning. She’s been several times to Japan where she has a few friends, most made when hosting them when they were attending the language school in Whitianga. Poppy was, understandably, not too sure of me initially but I knew she’d come round, the dogs always do. Chloe didn’t bat an eyelid! The rest of the day, apart from walking Poppy morning and evening and a supermarket shop, I pretty much stayed at ‘home’ so that the animals could get used to me. They were both to sleep on my bed for the duration and, surprisingly, this didn’t disturb me much at all as they barely moved.
Nothing much to report about Friday 8th, although I did manage to walk Poppy for an hour in the cool of the morning. It was another hot day spent mostly around the house.
I’d seen Wayne with a radio controlled yacht which he told me he’d made himself and meets others regularly to sail it. (Men with their toys eh?). He told me there was a competition on Saturday and that they would pop along to it, although he wasn’t participating as didn’t have the right class of yacht! They invited me to join them, so at 2pm we took a walk, along with a friend Carol who was staying for a few days, to Whitianga Waterways. This is a marine based urban development built by Hopper Developments, the unique feature being that boats can be berthed at private jetties in front of canal front homes. We passed the Hopper family’s house which was pretty ugly on the outside but no doubt amazing inside. Earlier I’d seen a small helicopter flying overhead which landed on the Hoppers’ estate and parked in a car port. How the other half live! Wayne assured me that Mr Hopper is a thoroughly nice man, which was good to hear.
We watched two races, the yachts having to sail twice around two buoys about 150 meters apart. It was interesting to watch and I learnt that all the yachts have to be registered, with numbers and names just like their full size equivalents.
There was later a report in the free local newspaper, ‘The Mercury Bay Informer’ that the class of yacht was Electron and the competition was the Des Townson Memorial Regatta run by the Bucklands Beach Yacht Club of Auckland, with about 30 yachts, all wind-powered, representing a variety of different clubs taking part from as far afield as Rarotonga.
I’d heard on the local radio an announcement of a talk at Whitianga Museum for this evening, which turned out to be at the town hall. This is part of a project called ‘Mercury Rising’ commemorating one of the reasons for Captain Cook’s first voyage to New Zealand 250 years ago: on 9 November 1769 Lieutenant (as he was then) James Cook and astronomer Charles Green observed the transit of Mercury across the sun from Mercury Bay which Whitianga overlooks. The ‘Mercury Rising’ Project ‘provides a platform for the deep astronomical knowledge of Maori alongside the modern understanding of astrophysics, all within the context of Mercury’s transit as viewed from NZ’s shores’. The Otago Museum based in Dunedin (South Island), Tuia 250 (‘a commemorative programme of experiences for encouraging honest conversations about the past, the present and how we navigate our shared future together’ with many events, projects and an education programme currently happening in NZ) and Mercury Bay Museum (here in Whitianga) formed the project with activities spread over a week, this talk being one of them. The culmination of the activities is an all night party on Cooks Beach as people await the transit of Mercury set for sunrise on Tuesday 12th! At time of writing I’m wondering whether I should make my way there for 6am as up to 20 telescopes are being provided. Quite fortuitous I think to be in the right place at the right time!
I decided to go along to the talk although, looking at the calibre of speakers and the subjects, thought I wouldn’t understand very much at all, not having a scientific cell in my brain and reaching the age of 62 with very little interest in astronomy and space. Even man’s first moonwalk held little appeal for me……unbelievable I know! The talk was free and too good an opportunity to miss.
The speakers:
The event was introduced by the Director of the Otago Museum, Ian Griffin, who was quite entertaining. He told us that the Maori people were the first astronomers in NZ, using the stars to navigate across the Pacific and phases of the moon to hunt and fish. On 10/11/1769 Lieutenant James Cook and the astronomer, Charles Green, had left the ship ‘Endeavour’ with telescopes – the first ever to be used on land in NZ. They observed the transit of Mercury across the sun on Cooks Beach. They used the transit to determine the latitude and longitude of their location and their findings have since proved to be accurate. This transit happens about 13 times every 100 years. He said that it’s interesting that there’s one 250 years after Cook and Green saw it (well 12/11/19 so near as damn it) and on 10/11/2269 there will be another.
The transit of Mercury starts at midnight. Mercury is 200th the size of the sun so it can only be seen through a telescope, although the image has to be projected on a piece of card as obviously you can’t stare directly at the sun during the process. There is to be an all night party (although I imagine quite sedate with people standing about chatting with drinks, but who knows?!) on Cooks Beach from 10pm and all were invited. They will provide 20 telescopes so than from sunrise (approximately 6am) until 7am people who turn up can look at Mercury’s transit. Do I or don’t I go for the 6am spectacle?!
Karen Pollard was the first to speak about the secret lives of the stars. All I noted was that astronomers believe the Universe is 13.8 billion years old, something I just can’t comprehend. Emma Bruce told us that Mercury is 4876km across which is less than half the size of Earth.
Sunday was pretty uneventful but it rained heavily in the night. The next morning on the dog walk I met a few other dog walkers. The first one knew Poppy. Her name was Lynn and she had a Westie called Mackie. She told me her daughter had bought Loretta’s house as a rental property, so it’s just as well I hadn’t mentioned anything about the next door neighbours before she told me! (Loretta had said one of her reasons for moving was the next door neighbours, with whom she’d had run ins, as he shouts so much). I might tease Loretta about this when she gets home, pretending I inadvertently told Lynn about the neighbours before she told me about her daughter buying the property! As we were walking along we bumped into a couple with a gorgeous dog called Olly, a Wheaten Terrier. Lynn could see I was going to chat to them for a while so took her leave. The couple had strong Northern accents and when I commented on them told me they were Mike and Ann, originally from Bolton and had come to NZ 46 years ago when their children were 7 and 11. They were Olly’s 3rd owners as he kept running away from the others as he hadn’t been trained, so they trained him and he had been fine ever since. They had first lived in South Auckland and Mike had worked at the airport as a sheet metal worker. Then they moved to Coromandel but found it too isolated (they had to travel to Thames for their big supermarket shop) so settled in Whitianga.
Then as I was walking with Poppy across a field we bumped into a man with a gorgeous little dog, cross Maltese and Shi Tzu or something like that, and Poppy and she had a run around while we chatted. I don’t know what his name was but he was pleasant and he told me that he and his ex wife had hoped to settle in the UK a few years before but the only visa they could get was a 3 year entrepreneurial visa. They found a b & b in Yorkshire that they wanted to buy and ran it for 3 months to see if they liked it. However there was no certainty that their visa would be extended so they were reluctant, understandably, to buy a property for 3 years and then sell it. They’d previously lived in Oz where his wife wanted to return to but he wanted to come back to NZ so they’d parted.
Needless to say on Tuesday morning I didn’t get up at 0430 to investigate if there was a ferry at that time to take me across the estuary (there wasn’t) to then walk for 50 minutes in the dark to Cooks Beach for the 0600 viewing of the transit of Mercury. Even if I’d had a car it would have been a 34km drive all the way round there, but I might have done that as I often wake at that time to go to the loo! So, having missed out on one of the 13 times this happens in 100 years I really felt like I should be doing something. The neighbours, Wayne and Toni, were going away until Friday taking Carol back to the North of the island where she lives.
I paid a visit to the cute ‘Mercury Bay Museum’ which overlooks the wharf where you catch the ferry across to access Cooks Beach and touristy boat trips. It occupies a historic site which was used by the local Maoris for more than 300 years until the mid 1870s as a cemetery. The Maori people removed many of the remains after looting by European curio hunters violated the sacred nature of the cemetery. By 1883 a timber mill had begun operating on the site and ran for 40 years. The current Art Deco building was built in 1934 as a dairy factory: the Mercury Bay Co-operative Dairy Co., winning many awards for its excellent butter and remained in operation until 1972. Cream was then sourced around the Mercury Bay area and butter taken to markets by boat. In 1974 the Whitianga Lions Club began fundraising to buy the building for use as a museum which was opened to the public in December 1979.
A lady in the museum told me, when I asked, that there had been quite a few people on Cooks beach to witness Mercury Rising that morning. The first part of the museum was taken up with the history of the first East Polynesian explorers from the Society Islands, southern Cook Islands and Austral Islands from about 1200-1300AD. NZ was the last habitable land mass to be discovered in the world. Then the story of Cook anchoring ‘Endeavour’ in Whitianga for 12 days in November 1769, his encounters with the Maori people and copies of pages from his ship’s log. There were details of the convict ship Buffalo that ran aground in Whitianga in 1840 giving a beach its name, with relics from the ship displayed. A small working model of the dairy factory, a reconstructed classroom and bird and fish displays.
It feel as if I’m on holiday here in Whitianga. That may sound odd as I’m on one very long holiday, so maybe a holiday within the big holiday! It feels as if time has stopped still here and I just love looking at the boats on the estuary, across to the other side and the typical Coromandel forest and hills in the distance. The water is as clear as crystal and as smooth as glass most of the time. The population here is about 5,000 but this quadruples over the Christmas (Summer) holidays. I can imagine it must be awful for the residents when this lovely tranquility is lost.
Tide out 
On Wednesday morning I decided to walk Poppy as far as Buffalo Beach which Loretta said she liked. We both enjoyed it and, in the end, we walked for 90 minutes which Poppy didn’t seem to object to. I decided to do this walk with her every morning, as long as it doesn’t rain.
Buffalo beach:
It rained throughout the night and heavily for much of Thursday morning so Poppy’s morning walk was delayed as a result. When we did go out she wasn’t that interested so it was just a short walk. I’d noticed that when I go to stroke her head she winces and mentioned this to Toni and Wayne who told me that the previous next door neighbours had children who would hit her on the head with sticks and stones. Poor thing! I spent most of the rest of the day reading and writing.
On Friday Toni & Wayne returned and I realised I’d missed them. They offered to watch Poppy as I fancied a walk into town to look at some of the shops. I’d been feeling a touch of cabin fever so took the opportunity. The shops aren’t that exciting but I enjoyed looking around one with some nice art and knick knacks and checked out the main charity shop, for St John’s, nearly buying a nice summer skirt but resisted as it was a bit tight. On the subject of charity shops here in NZ, some of them could do with a visit from Mary Portas as they seem to have very little idea how to display their wares attractively. The St John’s charity shop has everything for sale such as bras which had virtually no elastic and dirty trainers.
Nothing much to speak of on Saturday. I’ve taken to walking Poppy for her early evening walk along the estuary nearby when the tide’s usually out. I keep thinking I might find some Captain Cook treasure but none so far! I made a fish curry which will do for 3 evening meals.
Sunday was an interesting day. I managed to get up earlier than normal despite my sleep, as usual, being broken by the animals wanting to go out in the middle of the night. I walked Poppy to Buffalo beach and, as we arrived just before 9am, there was a couple waiting with their 20 month old dog who asked me if I was there for the dog walking group. I said no but waited with them and two more women turned up with their dogs. We joined them and Poppy seemed to enjoy it although, being a lot older than the others (the other two dogs were aged 3) she couldn’t quite keep up but gave it a good go. Unfortunately I didn’t have my phone on me to take pics. Poppy managed a longer walk than usual and a few dips to cool off. The couple I’d initially met were Ruth and Ray, and I chatted to Ray who told me he’d had cancer behind his eye and as a result had his eye removed but had been given the all clear.
I’d read in the local rag that the Mercury Bay Community Choir was giving a concert in the town hall at 2pm today followed by their ‘famous’ afternoon tea. I thought I’d go along and support them. I sat next to a lovely couple called Larissa and John. Larissa told me she belonged to another local choir called the ‘Golden Girls’ who sing at two different residential/nursing homes every month. John and some other men join the ‘girls’ for Christmas Carol concerts and he said he enjoyed it. Larissa said she enjoyed it for the social aspect as they go out for lunch and for drinks.
The Choir was made up of 21 people, 4 of them men led by a woman from Vancouver and they had two accompanists who took it in turns to play. The opening number, ‘Welcome to our world’ was certainly under rehearsed and I wasn’t at all convinced we were welcome to their world as they sang it with little conviction and quietly. Most of the songs were slow and I didn’t know them apart from ‘Anthem’ from the musical ‘Chess’. Other songs they sang were ‘There is a ship’, first published as a hymn 20 years after Cook set off for NZ and plucked from obscurity by Peter, Paul and Mary; ‘Crossing the bar’ a poem written by Alfred Lord Tennyson about preparing for death; ‘Nightfall’ music by Roger Emerson with lyrics from a Victorian poem; ‘Jazz Kyrie’ which was lovely; ‘Dreamland’, lyrics from a poem by Christina Rossetti; ‘Come Again’ a madrigal; ‘The Turtle Dove’ an English folk song associated with Ralph Vaughan Williams; ‘Prayer of the Children’; ‘You are the new day’; ‘Come in from the firefly darkness’; ‘The song of Ruth’; ‘Let the nations sing’.
The afternoon tea was a lovely spread that members of the choir had made. I got to talking to a few nice people, one of whom told me she was Sue and lived in Whanganui. I was surprised as realised that’s on the West coast so a fair distance from Whitianga, and I’d just booked two nights there before going to the concert as part of my next road trip. She thought that was an amazing coincidence and told me she had lots of beds and I’d be welcome to stay with her and we exchanged numbers. It would be nice to meet up with her as we were talking about our experiences of our respective piano teachers as children and I was encouraging her to join a choir as she said she hadn’t sung since school but would like to. Larissa told me to call on them as they’re not far from my housesit. She’d been telling me about their experiences of hosting on Airbnb.
I’d messaged (via Airbnb) Peter, my host in Napier to see if I could stay for one night on my road trip and thought we’d both save money by not booking via Airbnb. It turns out he’s in Whitianga so after messaging backwards and forwards we had a telephone conversation via Whatsapp and arranged to meet up for breakfast in the morning. He told me that their dog Leo, who I‘d videoed playing with a balloon, had died 2 weeks ago which is sad. He also told me that Airbnb monitor messages via the website and certain words such as ‘cash’ alert them as I’d suggested paying Peter with cash. Obviously they’re not happy about people booking direct with the hosts as they don’t then get their cut! Peter warned me of this as they can blacklist people.
On Monday morning, along with Poppy, I met up with Peter and his friend Ashley at 9am for breakfast at a lovely cafe called Espy which overlooks the Wharf area. Peter had come to Whitianga to help Ashley paint his Bach (pronounced ‘batch’ which is basically what NZ’ers call a holiday home). It was nice to see him and we spent a couple of hours chatting. I’ll see him and Beth again on 29th when I stay with them for one night. Peter was flying back to Napier from Auckland the next day.
On Tuesday morning I took Poppy for her morning walk along to ‘Lovers’ Rock’ an area that I hadn’t really investigated but by the estuary, turning right instead of our usual left. It was quite shady so perfect as it was starting to get warm and Poppy, who’s awaiting a haircut, can get quite hot. We saw Sandy, a friend of Loretta’s from the language school, who made a fuss of Poppy.
At 11am I left for my first, and what will be my last trip on the ferry across the estuary to investigate the other side. Toni and Wayne said they would keep Poppy company, as they have been used to looking after her for Loretta at times but don’t walk her hence my housesitting. This was my first real opportunity to spend some time away from the house having not had a car and with no public transport here. The ferry cost $7 return and took just a few minutes across that narrow stretch of water. It’s for passengers, and bicycles, only so with a car it’s a 40km ride round.
Soon after getting off the ferry I briefly paid a visit to a cemetery nearby which had some interesting sculptures and headstones:
The first beach I came across was Front Beach and it was deserted. Then a bit further along was Flaxmill Bay and nearby a cafe that had been recommended to me called ‘Eggsentric’. By this time it was midday and as I hadn’t had breakfast I sat outside and had poached eggs on toast, although there were far more interesting things on the menu but I wasn’t hungry enough. I later discovered that my Waihi Airbnb host, Julie, knew this place well. The floor of the loo was decorated with a collage and I thought of my friend Glenys who enjoys this craft:
From there I took a path up to Shakespeare Cliff’s lookout (which meant a few steps!) where there was a stone marking Cook’s first visit and which overlooked Lonely Bay and Cooks Beach.
Lookout 
I walked along Cooks Beach which had, as so many of these beaches have, lots of beautiful shells and collected a few small ones. If I thought Whitianga was quiet then this area is like a morgue however it will be getting busy soon. One lovely thing to note is that there are never lines of hotels overlooking the beaches in NZ, as you’d see in the Mediterranean, just lovely homes, whether residential or baches. Let’s hope it stays that way as it makes such a difference.
I walked back towards the ferry, stopping at Eggsentric for one of their homemade ice creams, ice cream being a rare indulgence for me, and took a route back to the ferry through a historic reserve (a wood) and as I was coming out of the wood got a great view of Whitianga:
I’d been wearing a pair of shorts all day that I’d bought in an opp shop in Tauranga and realised the next day that there was a big split in the back! No idea how that happened, unless I’d snagged them in the wood, otherwise I was walking around all day proudly showing off my knickers – but then people may have thought this was a trend to match torn jeans!
Another adventure on Wednesday, my penultimate day at this housesit, was a 2 hour boat trip. There were a few to choose from but I’d been recommended either Ocean Leopard tours or the Glass Bottom boat. I’d seen the glass bottom boat and people seemed to be crammed in there, it dipped in the water at the back and went quite slowly so I opted for the Ocean Leopard. The boat was full and our ‘tour guide’ was a pleasant young Kiwi called Taz who told me he’d spent 10 years chasing winters everywhere (my plan is to do the opposite) working in ski resorts but then he realised he missed the sea, summer and his home of Whitianga.
This area is really quite breathtaking and we were taken past where I’d walked yesterday and to Cathedral Cove, Hahei beach where I’d walked on my earlier road trip and beyond. Taz told us part of ‘Prince Caspian’ (from the ‘Chronicles of Narnia’) was filmed at Cathedral Cove and that 700,000 people had visited it in one year when they counted (not sure which year) which is quite astounding. It was nice to see these areas from the sea having explored them on land. The area is fascinating from a geological point of view with fabulous rocks, blow holes and the second biggest sea cave in NZ (Orua Sea Cave) which is only accessible by boat. You could easily imagine how the lava had flowed by the lovely patterns it had made in the rocks.
9km of the coast was established in 1992 as a marine reserve and marked with sticks where, surprisingly, stocks of fish such as snapper have increased and the fish seem to know this is a safe area where commercial fishing isn’t allowed. In fact there’s a heavy fine should anyone fish there of $250,000, and seizure of the boat and boat trailer. A great area for exploring in a kayak too, just a pity I haven’t got round to that although I know, from past experience, that’s not part of my skill set. Taz was a nice guy and informative, evidently loving his job. He told us they had seen orca 3 days ago but we saw none today. He encouraged snapper fish to come to the surface by throwing some barley into the sea and we saw some beautiful blue fish called blue maomao which like living in the sea cave.
Cathedral Cove 
‘Sphinx’ at Cathedral Cove 
As I left the boat I got talking to a nice American couple from Michigan who had recently retired and been travelling for a month but going back home on Sunday. They’d had quite a hectic tour with 3 days here, 2 days there, but that was the sort of thing I’ve done in the past and can’t imagine going back to.
Thursday was my last day and the return of Loretta. On Poppy’s walk we bumped into a lady I’d seen before but this time stopped for a chat. Her name was Jenny and she ran, with her husband, a nice b & b with a lovely front garden that I walked past most days. She knew Loretta also from her walking past with Poppy. Jenny was from England but had left years before. She’d gone to boarding school and to college in Rye.
Later I did some cleaning, minimal as it’s such a small house and Loretta had told me not to bother, and cooked a meal for us. Loretta arrived home just after 5pm having had the most awful flight back with severe turbulence most of the way. We sat and had a drink with Wayne and Toni before dinner. It was nice to see her again, it confused Poppy who was going from me to Loretta and clearly knew something was up (she’d seen me packing) but the animals slept that night on Loretta’s bed.
On Friday morning Loretta took me to get the 0745 shuttle bus to Thames to connect with the Inter City bus to Tauranga. As usual I shall miss the animals and have really loved this relaxing time in Whitianga. I really was felling like part of the community, getting to chat to a few people and supporting local initiatives. So it was another sad goodbye and on with the next adventure.
NeverSayNeverNomad 