Peacocks & Penguins (4)

We had a couple of afternoon trips onto dry land, the first one after 3 days at sea. As the wind had died down, the engine was turned on and we motored to Kawau Island, a popular marine holiday resort about 50km north of Auckland. As we anchored in the bay, I noticed some jellyfish languidly drifting past and made a mental note not to go in the water. In groups of sixes and sevens, we donned lifejackets and climbed down a short rope ladder to the motorboat which had been taken down from the roof of the deckhouse.

On the waterfront stands the colonial-style Mansion House, built by a former Governor of New Zealand. It had a lovely garden from which I took some pictures of the ship, though there were so many other yachts anchored in the bay that it was hard to get a clear shot. Another visitor who was resting on a bench outside the house looked amused when I asked him whether it was okay to walk on the lawn: "You're in New Zealand now - you can always walk on the grass!" Peacocks strutted past us in the grounds, including two incredibly inquisitive ones that came right up to Jon, Christine and I, cocking their heads as if wondering whether it would be worth giving us a peck. Luckily they didn’t and I took some fabulous close-up photos without having to use the zoom.

One of the first things that we did was to make a beeline for the cafe and slurped down ice-creams (or in my case, a delicious choc-ice filled with biscuit bits and caramel). I was almost overcome seeing the cafe's flush toilet. After 3 days of the marine loo ritual of turning the stopcock on, pumping waste out, pumping sea water in, pumping sea water out and then turning off the stopcock, it seemed absurdly quick and easy to be able to flush with a single handle push.

It was lovely being able to stretch our legs and we followed a couple of short trails, bumping into fellow VCs Lloyd and Marilyn on the way. On the way back, Brian the engineer obligingly brought the dinghy to a halt near the Soren so that we could snap pictures of her - unfortunately all her sails were furled, so the pictures weren't as impressive as they could have been. Dinner that evening was on deck (lamb tagine and a gorgeously zingy lemon sponge pudding) and afterwards we admired the spectacular sunset, all hot pinks and dusky violets.

On our last full sailing day, there was still no wind, so we motored back towards Auckland via Tiritiri Matangi Island. This is a bird reserve where all natural predators have been eradicated, and all the trees are so low that you are practically at eye level with the birds. We only had an hour to explore so some people chose to walk into the woodland to try to see birds, but others took the short walk along the beach track. I opted for the latter. There was too much foot traffic on the beach path to hope that we would see any birds, though halfway along, there were 3 little blue penguin nesting boxes. These looked like huge rocks topped with a wooden lid, complete with handle. On lifting up the lid, you could peer down into the "nest" through the glass - inside each one was a huge, fat, fluffy bird, so huge in fact that I wondered how on earth they got in there in the first place.