Karikari Beaches

Next day we drove further north to the Karikari peninsula and beaches and occupied ourselves with a couple beach walks. Turns out the first of them, Maitai (or maybe Merita?) we'd done before, but no matter, they're still beautiful. 

This was once the great watchtower of Amon Sul; wait, no, it's
St. Paul's Rock, above Manganui; for the real fake great watchtower
of Amon Sul, look here

Sand, sea, lava, flora

Another pano of the big tree we saw in 2018

Seaweed in the lower branches

The tree

Boulders on the beach, just in this one spot

Pano looking right

Left

Now, a few miles up the peninsula, Karikari Beach

It's high summer, high tourist season

There can't be 10 people in sight, for miles, mostly a few fishing

Lots of interesting shells on the beach, especially
some good-sized scallop shells...St. James must
have popped over this way on his voyage from
Galilee to Galicia...

Mahinepua Coastal Walk

We did the Mahinepua walk in 2018, and thought it was one of the best day hikes we've done in New Zealand. We did it again January 15th.

Among the bays on the way

Pohutukawa on Mahinepua Bay

Nice swimming cove to rappel to

Before the bigger uphills, Vicki decided to save her knees for
bigger things and waited in the shade of another cove (right of
center)

It's sort of a ridge walk out on a peninsula; here looking left

Right, across the bay

Left again closer up

Ahead, the end of the peninsula and a small island beyond

The trig; end of walk

View from trig

Me, there

Trig documentation

Among the several long staircases that constitute this
walk

Blue waters

Someone's beautiful Norfolk Island Pine wind break

The Fishbowl, we call it; right on the beach parking lot, every room
with a picture window view...in as well as out 

Aboard The R. Tucker Thompson For The Bay Of Islands Tall Ships Race: Part The Second

Continuing our day's excellent and exciting voyage...

The yellow buoy there marks the end of the Bay, the turning
point, half-way...

Action scene

Bracing...

The racing judge ship...

Congestion at the turn

Island with a hole...also an arch

Full sail

Below deck, the galley

Navigation center

Finally passing the buoy...took four tacks; we are dead last but
having a blast; and now have the wind

Giant cave on an island in the Bay

Hanging out just one more sheet...crew members asking if anyone had

an umbrella...we're making nine knots now!

Roberton Island, where Captain Cook originally landed; well,

earlier he'd put six crew ashore on the South Island...but they

never returned

Tea time; not clotted cream, but whipped to a pretty good approximation

Back in the fun harbor

This guy zipped by repeatedly, his board seldom touching the water

Yours truly at the helm...now safely docked

End of a great day!