We’re now “upriver” in Whangarei where Charisma will wait out the tropical cyclone months until April or so.  In the mean time we’ll be traveling home for the holidays, then back for some South Island land touring again, then boat work and the “biggie”, sailing Charisma back across the Pacific to the U.S. starting in May.

So stay tuned for more adventure.  We’ll be back occasionally until February when we start traveling again and will post pictures of our travels.

(Also, I updated stories with pictures back to “Urupukupuku”)

Seriously, that’s what Bob told me this morning. Really? I did not dare ask twice. Instead I got my gear together and had Bob drop me off about 20 minutes into a beautiful forest area near Opua for a hike. Bob needed me off of Charisma so he could replace the cockpit remote radio mike. And I was willing to do my part!

The hike was a 3 mile hike that traversed the ridge line into Paihia. It was stunning. I hiked up and down, up and down through a tunnel created by a combination of young Kauri trees, pine trees and others I can not identify. And as I dipped low on the ridge I was treated to fern umbrellas to keep cool.

The Happy Hiker!

The ridge became quite narrow at times and I realized that if I looked to my right I was looking down a cliff and when I looked left I had the same perspective. Once when I moved my jitoko ( Fijian for walking stick) to my right hand from the left I found no place to put it on that side either! And just when I thought I could hear a waterfall or river I realized it was the wind buffeting the top of the ridge. Very fun.

Good signage here.

Nice view from the ridge.

And the hike continued out to a lookout that treated me to a perfect view of the bay we had entered as we arrived. I sat and enjoyed a quick lunch wishing I could pull our friends that are still out there into the bay by sheer willpower. It looked lovely out there and hopefully it was as nice as it looked.

We've done the Pahia to Opua bit several times, but hard to get tired of the views.

I stopped in Paihia to kill more time and catch the 4 mile trail back to Opua, arriving at the perfect time…Bob had completed his job about a half hour earlier and was enjoying a beer and the boat was back in order! Yay!

(From Bob)  The project was kinda ugly.  Good that Ann wasn’t on board as I had to tear up most of the boat to get into the wiring to replace the remote mike.  There was stuff everywhere and no where to sit down.  I was very happy to finish the project before she got back and saw the mess.    😉

Ann tricked me into a hike today.

Not that I exactly didn’t WANT to do one.  I had planned to install a new radio remote in the cockpit.  Our fancy ICOM “waterproof” VHF remote failed due to water incursion and corrosion.  The new radio came up from Auckland by courier but it didn’t have all the parts in the box, so I couldn’t install it.  So, tomorrow…sigh.

In the mean time we decided to go into Kerikeri to stock up.  We’re leaving tomorrow mid-day.  First out to the Bay of Islands, then down the coast.  We’ll probably be about a week to get down to Whangarei.  Anyway, as we got into Kerikeri Ann says, “Let’s just go down to Rewa and The Stone House, I’ve heard there are blue penguins there”.  OK, I’m game.  We headed a couple miles past town and Ann said, “Turn in here”.  We turn into a parking lot, parked and got out of the car.  She walked directly over to a trail head and said, “Oh look, there’s a nice little hike up to a waterfall!”

Tricked.

Ann said a little birdie told her where we should go...

Anyway, it was a nice hike and we DID need to get off the boat and out hiking.  So a nice 2 hour round trip, a couple waterfalls and we were back to the car.  Then shopping for food.

Not a bad day.

The first waterfall on the hike.

This is the named waterfall on the hike. Rainbow Falls. Actually both were quite beautiful.

Here’s a photo of a boat that pulled in here the other day who didn’t get south fast enough to miss that tropical depression we were racing to stay well in front of.  We understand they experienced 65 knot gusts.  Torn sail, engine knocked out and the boat is soaked down below.  Yup, we’re glad we avoided that.

It looks like the jib was partially furled when it blew. It's been like this a couple days so I guess the halyard is also jammed.

Here’s a few photos to go along with the passage from Fiji to NZ

Anchored at Momi Bay enjoying a Charisma the night before we left.

We sailed within VHF range (20 miles) of Buena Vista for the first four or five days...

...these pictures were taken mid-day on day three...

...it was blowing 20-25 knots and six to nine foot seas.

Further south the wind died down and turned southerly forcing us to the southwest.

Lighter winds allow the squalls to form. We dodged most of them using the radar to "see" which ones had heavy rain. Of course you could see this one did without the radar.

The one nice sunrise out of eight - this trip was pretty cloudy most of the way.

Land Ho. New Zealand after 8 days 10 hours, our fastest yet.

Preparing to enter the bay at Opua.

The marina at Opua

Yup, we went for a very long walk today. It’s sort of a tradition now that we’ve been here the last three years. It starts with a ferry boat ride across the way, then a six or so mile walk into Russell where we have lunch. Then another ferry over to Paihia and another six miles back to Opua. Then back on Charisma and three aspirin and a nap!

The highlight this year was when we were a mile or two out of Russell, on a section of the hike along the road, the boring part, when it started raining really hard. Just as the deluge started a car pulled over and beeped its horn. We ran over and they threw the door open. We looked in and just when it seemed like there couldn’t be enough room the folks inside crammed themselves over and made room for us. A bunch of young 20 something’s that just took pity on us. They were of Maori descent and so very nice. There’s only one small road so we didn’t even have to negotiate about where we were going. We just went and within a mile or two we were in Russell and got dropped at our favorite craft pizza place for lunch. How wonderful that people are so kind and genuine! Definitely the highlight of a wonderful day.

Nice to be out hiking again!