Adventures with the Vick-Cullens . . .

Sunday 04 January

Jack and Deb and Cam and Kate are here at last. Their arrival has been one of the most anticipated occasions of our trip. They've been exploring the North Island for several days and are now here in Mangonui to join us for a week of fun and sun and sailing.

For our celebratory feast we had champagne with green-lipped mussels, hapuka and bluenose sashimi for dinner.

Monday 05 January

Partied late, so slept in late. After breakfast V-C's and DKT drove 20 km's to Taupo Bay. It is a gorgeous day, with great waves, boogie boarding, and picnic. Jack lost rental car keys in the surf; called all over Northland for new ones, but not available until late the next day. We are all bummed, changing plans. Hours later Ty found keys buried in the sand, and all are happy again.

Tuesday 06 January

A big adventure day: expedition to Cape Reinga via 90-Mile-Beach.

We're all breakfasted, saddled up, and away before 0800. Picked up our 4WD Mitsubishi Delica at the Visitor's Center in Kaitaia, drove 10k to Awanui then out to the beach at Waipapakauri and turn right (north).

Tide is low and going out. Beach is wide, smooth and flat and it's tempting to drive very fast. The boys (including Cam and Ty) take turns driving. After a bit we come across a rocky outcropping with tidepools and Kate finds all kinds of cool critters.

We're feeling the crunching millions of empty shells under the wheels, so stop again and all pile out to hunt tuatuas (clams). Just stand barefoot in the waves, wiggle your feet until you feel the clams and pick them up. We don't need shellfish today so they're put back in the sand and we hold clam races.

After another 40 km's or so we come to a headland called The Bluff and encounter first humans since we hit the beach: Maori fishermen casting off the rocks and catching lots of snapper, trevally, kahawei.

At Te Paki Stream, we turn right, driving right up the riverbed. It's hot and steamy in the river, with tule growing tall on either side of us and it feels like Africa. We're worried about quicksand but Jack gets us safely up the river and finally finds a real road.

We turn north again and find a beautiful spot called Tapotupotu Bay for picnic lunch; good waves, boogie boards, everybody swam and played in river, and kids climbed trees. Another lost aerobie (number 4) in the surf.

Then on to the Lighthouse at Cape Reinga, located at the north tip of the North Island. We are there one day before the Whitbread racers round the cape on the homestretch to Auckland. Dennis Conners in Toshiba is bare minutes in the lead at this point and the whole of New Zealand is aghast. More than anybody in the world, he is the person Kiwi's most love to hate.

Rather than bumping along a rutted road down the center of the peninsula for hours, we decide to head back to Kaitaia the way we came . . . driving the beach.

After we'd been driving south along the beach for a half-hour or so, miles and miles from anywhere, we came across a poor lonely soul trudging down the beach. He'd started walking to find help because the car in which he and ladyfriend and two kids were traveling was totally stuck in the sand, below the tideline. What was especially curious was that this guy was blind, and obviously hadn't a clue where he was or where he was headed.

So we helped. After all kinds of fooling around we got their car out of the sand and the strange little family took off. Then we discovered that OUR battery had gone dead, and now WE were stuck miles from nowhere, and not looking forward to a cold and buggy night on the beach. Fortunately for us a nice Maori family drove up, pulling an ATV on a trailer. With the ATV pulling and all of us pushing, we finally managed a compression start . . . no mean trick on the beach and a diesel engine.

At Te Paki Stream the 'kids' all went boogeying down some steep dunes. Kate decides she's going too fast so tries to brake with her feet . . . one second later she does a spectacular 'face-plant' . . . and gets up smiling.

Wednesday 07 January

Everybody went his or her own way today. K. and Deb went shopping and lunching in Mangonui. Dan and Jack worked with computers. Ty, Cam and Kate went fishing at the wharf. Cam and Kate both proved very adept at catching yellowtail. Kate caught a fat kahawei that was filleted and sliced for dinner sushi.

Friday 09 January

We're all up and on the road by 0830. Stopped in at Pahia for last-minute items, then to Opua where we caught the ferry to Russel. Waiting for us at the wharf are Pip and Oliver Campbell, owners of the sailing ketch aboard which we'll be cruising Bay of Islands for the next three days.

'A Place In The Sun' is pulled up to the windward side of wharf and skipper Oliver is not at all happy about the beating she's taking while Dan and Jack move cars up to Pip and Oliver's house. Oliver finds lots of things to be unhappy about during the next few days.

We're finally away and it's blowing really hard. We raised all sail (except mizzen stays'l) in Force 8 gale and flew . . . port scupper buried in green water, and everybody doing their best to pretend at having fun.

Oliver is a very veteran charter skipper, salty as hell, and we're swallowing hard and trying to keep the faith. 'Bullets' gusting down ravines knocked us hard over several times. Sometimes it mellows a bit and the boys take turns at the helm.

We tried to sail into a secret little spot called Oke Bay with just the yankee and fore stays'l set, but the entrance was only bare yards wide and at the last minute a gust caught us and blew the bow hard around, almost putting us onto the rocks. Discretion proved the better part of valor, and we dropped all sail and motored into the anchorage for lunch.

After another wild afternoon of sailing we checked out several anchorages, but found all were getting hammered hard by gusts. Finally found shelter in a little cove near Parorenui Bay.

All the kids, Deborah, K. and D. (Jack is nursing badly sprained toes) climbed the ridge to the top of the Pa behind the cove after dinner for a splendid view of islands and crazily convoluted coastline.

The consensus is beginning to develop amongst our company that, although Oliver is a remarkable sailor and that he and Pip have built one of the finest boats afloat, he is way too cantankerous an old fart to be chartering to the public. What especially annoys Dan is how he keeps complaining about and criticizing all things American. Mutinous rumors are being whispered belowdecks.

Pip made everybody happy again with a fine dinner, and after a few glasses of port even old Captain 'Ahab' Campbell started seeming like good company. The crew assembled in the cockpit for a sunset photo.

Saturday 10 January

Even in a 50-footer, nine bodies is a bunch, so some slept better than others. All night long the wind kept gusting through the anchorage in 50 knot bullets that howled through the rigging like a demented beasts. Through it all, sweet Kate keeps smiling.

Pip served us poached eggs on toast in the cockpit for breakfast. When ready to get underway, Oliver tried to start the engine. Nothing happened. Somehow we had shorted out all three banks of batteries. After a couple hours of fussing about we at last got the engine started by borrowing a couple of batteries from another yacht. But the electrical system wasn't right and troubled us for the remainder of our trip.

Sailed through Black Rocks (vertical basalt crystals, gulls and terns nesting). Cam and Ty keep a sharp eye to loo'ard.

Lunch at Motorua Island. Dan, Ty and Cam rowed ashore and climbed to ridgetop to inspect pillboxes and gun emplacements left over from WWII. These were built in WWII to fend off German raiders. They never showed up.

After lazing about in the sun for a couple hours we motored six miles up the Kerikeri R. to Old Stonehouse, built in 1833 and the oldest building in New Zealand. From there we sailed north up coast (fishing line out, but nothing caught) to Crowles Harbour for our night anchorage. Cam and Ty took the dinghy out for a cruise around the bay.

Wind has finally quieted down, sun is warm, and everybody is happy.

Pip prepared a birthday dinner for darling K.'s 50th birthday . . . champagne, crab salad, baked flounder. Cake and opening of gifts after dinner, and everybody got weepy because we love her so much.

Sunday 11 January

Lazy morning getting started. Dan went for a swim and Kate helped him rinse off with the deck shower.

It is our last day of sailing and we're mopey because in a few hours we have to say goodbye to our dear friends from back home.

Raised anchor, headed back south, and Tyler and Cam (under Oliver's direction) raised all sail under a stiffening breeze. Put up mizzen stays'l for the first time and this wonderful thoroughbred of a ship really kicked up her heels. Oliver says he'll sell her for a million dollars, and not a penny less.

Arrived back in Russell around noon, offloaded the boat, retrieved cars, ate lunch at Orca Cafe. Bid a tearful goodbye to Jack and Deb, Cam and Kate. They enrichen our lives immeasurably, and we love adventuring with them.

On our way home we stopped at Waitangi and toured the Treaty House; where the controversial Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840 between 46 Maori chiefs and representatives of the Queen of England. Walked through the gorgeous Whare Runanga (Maori meeting house) with its incredible carvings.

Then we happened upon an amazing machine called Ngatokimatawhaorua. It is one of the largest war canoes ever built: 35 meters long and carries 80 warriors. It is carved out of three massive trunks of kauri which were ingeniously scarfed together with fiber lashings. The tree for the main body of the canoe is over five meters in diameter.

Headed for Mangonui, but first a stop along the way for K. to purchase wool at Akatere woolworks.

Tuesday January 13

It's almost time to leave Northland behind. Chrys Trussler and Gay Cooper took K. out for a farewell lunch at the Slung Anchor in Mangonui.

Wednesday January 14

The boys' last day fishing down at the wharf. They've still not caught a kingfish. Caught a kahawei and hooked a giant ray, that might well have been a bulldozer for all the concern it exhibited about being connected to a fishing rod. It just kept heading out to sea until the line snapped.

The Trussler girls and friend Lisa came over and all went with Tyler to play down at Coopers Beach. When Chrys picked them up we gave her a fresh John Dory to take home for supper. Later that evening Jerry and Chrys and the girls came back for a final goodbye. They're awfully dear folks who will thrive in their new country. The girls got a little puddly in their goodbyes to Ty P.

Thursday January 15

Left Mahoe Lane at 0900, and headed south through Kaitaia, left at Mangamuka Bridge to ferry at Rawene and across Hokianga harbour to the little village of Kohukohu. Then south to Waipoa Forest where the last few of the great kauri giants is still standing. We hiked to pay homage to 'Tane Mahuta', the largest of the kauri alive today.

It is a magnificent tree with a perfectly columnar trunk 15 feet thick, and is thought to be around 2000 years old. These incredible trees once covered the Northland, all but a few dozen were felled by the turn of the century. The largest tree ever taken was 28.5 feet in diameter, and contained over 50,000 board feet of dense hardwood.

Stopped for an hour or so at Kauri Museum at Dargaville, then south over rolling pastureland to Auckland.

Tomorrow Rusty Johnson (Ty's buddy from Mercer Island) will join us for the next three weeks and whatever adventures we'll find on . . .

Great Barrier Island . . .