Whangarai To Russell

It took us two lazy days to cover these 80km, although some of the time we spent walking the Tutukaka Coast beaches, setting up at the Russell Top 10 holiday park, and visiting Russell's little harbor.

On the way out of town, we stopped by Whangarai Falls and 
thought we'd do a bit of the garden walk; but rain was threatening...

On the bridge over the falls...good advice for any
bridge

On to Tutukaka Beach

Moi, there

Other end of the beach

Alas, the Mermaid Pool was closed; so we moved on

We thought we'd spend the night by a look-out with this view;
but then thought it maybe a little too lonely, and so camped at an
approved site on the estuary at Ngunguru

On to Russell, England's original foothold in New
Zealand

On the harbor in Russell, blooms on a Pohutukawa

Beautiful old colonial mansion

A Cook Island Pine...you can tell by its lean...

Out in the harbor, the good ship R. Tucker Thompson, which we will
ride in the Tall Ships Race the next day

Along the harbor shore

On the veranda of the Duke of Marlborough hotel and restaurant;
no two chairs the same

The great Morton Bay fig tree; planted in the 1860s

Hundertwasser In Whangerai; And A Botanical Curiosity

We're still moving slowly. We spent the day after our cliff walk holed up in a campground: rain and winds of 25-35 mph were (correctly) forecast for the next 24 hours, and we figured, why bother? Today, Wednesday, the 11th, was far better, so, after a bit of shopping in Mangawhai, we drove on, partly inland, partly along beautiful beaches and seascapes, to Whangerai, and parked in an approved overnight spot in a carpark near the regional stadium. 

Here I must remind the reader that the "wh" in Maori is pronounced as an "f." Seriously. So if someone says "whuck you," be offended, or at least attentive. And pronounce "Mangawhai" and "Whangerai" correctly. But I digress.

After lunch, we walked into the old town area, and, somewhat to our surprise, wandered into the Hundertwasser Art Centre. As students of this blog will recall, Friendensreich emigrated to New Zealand late in his life, built a farm near here, and lived out the rest of his days (except for consulting gigs) in harmony with Nature. He also designed the Hundertwasser Toilets in Kawakawa, something we've seen a couple times before, and had resolved to bypass on this campaign. We'd seen his toilets in Vienna just a couple months ago, not to mention other things, and think that we have discharged whatever obligation we may have had to further appreciate his work. But we had to look into the Art Centre, designed by Hundertwasser himself in the 90s, but not built until more recently. It is indeed recognizably authentic. The museum gift shop, I might add, easily surpassed anything we saw of the sort in Vienna. FWIW. 

On the way back to the camper, near some of the older historic buildings, we came across one of the more unusual plants we've encountered, a Gomphocarpus, from Africa, aka the scrotum plant or the bishop's balls. You saw it here first...

PS...a very loud rock concert at the stadium caused us to move to the TI out on the highway; lots of musical refugees here tonight.

At an RV/marine store in Whangerai...why there's a kettle shortage
in Auckland

Seeing the dome in the distance, we thought it might be an orthodox
church

But no, it's Hundertwasser Art Centre

Undulating tiled floors, just like the other Hundertwasser buildings
we've seen

The aforementioned excellent museum gift shop

Hundertwasseresque snail teapot

Fuller view

Tiny house adjacent to the museum/centre

We think the flag on the right is the Hundertwasser flag

Getting bilingual at a playground; Maori is still not on Duolingo!

The plant: Gomphocarpus

Thank you, Google Lens

Mangawhai Cliffs Walk, 2023

After our three days' respite at Orewa Beach--the last two featured some relatively nice weather, 70s, partly sunny, great for beach walks--we decamped and drove on north to Mangawhai and the beach/cliff walk there. Typically, depending on the tides, one hikes up the beach, then ascends the cliffs and hikes back on them. Or vice versa. This we did in 2018 (https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2018/03/mangawhai-cliffs-1.html and https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2018/03/mangawhai-cliffs-2.html) and also, part way, in 2014 (https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2014/03/waipu-and-mangawhai-heads_30.html). It is one of the most popular of the North Island's many day hikes. Except this day, the weather was not so great, gray, 25mph winds, spitting rain. Footing along the last half of the beach walk is rocky and challenging in the best of conditions, so we opted to hike both ways along the cliff tops, avoiding the difficult footing and also the sand-blasting along the beach. Not as good as the 2018 experience, but, hey, 16,000 steps and a couple hundred meters elevation gained and lost. 250 steps up and down, Vicki adds, which she surmounted and dismounted using her trusty walking sticks. And artificial knee.

Sentinel Rock, just out from the carpark and beginning of the hike

After a kilometer or so, we are now atop the "cliffs"

Seaward are Sail Rock and Hen Island; the Chick Islands off to the left

Just as on the west coast of Northland, miles and miles of undeveloped
beaches

Other direction, toward the Natural Arch on the beach

Basalt columns underlying the "cliff," reminding us in 2018 just
a bit of the Giant's Causeway and Fingal's Cave 

End of the trail, for us; note slip (landslide)

On the way back, Vicki has noted a tree that the wind is pretty
much ripping off the trail side; thinking this might make an
interesting video...

Rocking back and forth with each gust, the crevasse perceptibly
widening...

Maybe we'll come back in a few years to see whether
it's still there