And we’re off to the Coromandel!
Saturday 22 March
It was certainly worth the bus trip back to Auckland on Thursday. The Britomart 20th Anniversary party was rather fabulous and accomplished with their usual panache, an open marquee in Takutai Square with delicious food, wines from Peter Cooper’s own Landing Vineyards and an awesome 10-piece band who played all the cover hits and got everybody up on the floor dancing. It was wonderful to reconnect with the Cooper & Co Team, who were my amazing Landlords when I had my Jo Malone, MAC and Bobbi Brown Boutiques there, and also some of the other original Britomart retailers. What foresight and what a fabulous development Peter and his Team created, truly a special place in Auckland where you can, shop, eat, drink, be entertained and even sleep in the Boutique Britomart Hotel. My nine years there as a tenant were awesome and very memorable, it was a real community, and we did some amazing collaborations and events there together. Great to see the exhibition in the Atrium of how they transformed and renovated those old historical buildings, I really loved being part of it and it was such a special time. You’ll notice from the photo below that I took the opportunity to wear my purple Flapper dress that Geoff bought me in Napier last week too! A wonderful lunch with Geoff’s family on Friday, funnily enough, in one of the Britomart restaurants. One of Geoff’s second cousins who lives in Manchester was in Auckland on a one-day stopover on a cruise ship, so the family all got together to welcome her and share family photos and stories. Funnily enough, during a conversation with her, we realised that her cruise ship had been in Tauranga the day before and I had a photo of it in the Marina taken yesterday morning when we had refuelled the boat prior to getting the bus back to Auckland – if only we’d known, we could have seen her there too!
And so it was back to Tauranga on the bus early on Saturday morning with a stop in Thames en route and a quick photo of Thames local, Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Park, a New Zealand born officer of the RAF who during his leadership with No 11 Group, was pivotal to the defeat of the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain, and a photo of the famous L&P bottle in Paeroa through the bus window (for those of you overseas L&P stands for Lemon & Paeroa, a naturally carbonated mineral lemon drink made in Paeroa that all Kiwi kids love). And then it was back to Salanjo. Thirty minutes later we were cruising out of the harbour on a stunning late summer’s afternoon, lunch on the table, to our next stop, Whangamata.
Whangamata
A popular holiday destination in New Zealand, Whangamata boasts a four-kilometre-long ocean beach with rolling breaks for surfing, golden sands, native forest, cafes, restaurants, and plenty of surf and gift shops. It is famous for its annual Beach Hop, which is NZ’s number one nostalgia festival celebrating the best of the 50’s & 60’s with music, classic cars and scooters, fashion and dancing – what a bummer we were a week early – it would have been so much fun, and it wasn’t like we didn’t have somewhere to stay!
We anchored in the Wentworth river just off the wharf - in half tide in 2.2 metres of water! - and took the dinghy in for a lovely walk around the little township, easy to see why it’s such an attractive place for holidays, so laid back and idyllic. Then it was back to the boat for (one too many) gin and tonics sitting on her bow!
Sunday 23 March
Definitely sluggish this morning so we hopped in the dinghy and back into town to find ourselves a cooked breakfast before our departure. I’m writing this as we are cruising along in the sunshine; we’ve passed some lovely islands with some great names…Rabbit, Penguin, Slipper and Shoe and are heading for Whitianga in Mercury Bay where we have guests on the boat for dinner.
And what a lovely dinner it was too, so nice to host Murray and Lyn who are no strangers to Salanjo having enjoyed a few cruises in exotic places on her with Geoff when he was doing his world trip. Lovely for them to reminisce about their travels on her and it was a very convivial evening all round.
Monday 24 March
Whitianga
Into the dinghy and around the bay to tie up in Whitianga stone wharf which was built in 1838 and is the oldest remaining wharf in the country. Whitianga is the second largest town on the Coromandel Peninsula after Thames and historically was a centre for boat building, kauri and flax milling, gold mining and gum digging and was a leading timber port with sailing ships from Norway, Sweden, France, Italy and Great Britain coming to load timber.
Captain James Cook arrived here in November 1769 to observe the transit of Mercury (this happens on the “9th instant and will be wholly visible here if the day is clear between 5 and 6 o’clock”). He named Whitianga Harbour “the River of Mangroves” and this area is still known locally as The River. James Cook was accompanied by Charles Green an astronomer (who sadly died on the homeward journey in 1771) and Joseph Banks, a renowned Botanist who collected a vast number of specimens from New Zealand which are held in both Wellington’s Te Papa Botany Collection and also became the basis for one of the best herbariums in the world which is now in the Natural History Museum in London. We wandered around the town and saw the most stunning mural dedicated to this voyage – see photos below.
The late Peter Nicholson, a highly respected Whitianga Artist, was renowned here in the Bay for his murals depicting Whitianga’s history including kauri logging, the “Whitianga 1890” mural at Soldiers Memorial Park, the Joseph Banks mural alongside the Endeavour and the underwater mural on the local Dive Shop. We had a wonderful walk around this great little beachy town looking at them all and ended with a trip to the Mercury Bay Museum. Located in what was the old Dairy Factory which closed in 1972, the Museum houses exhibits about the Polynesian navigator Kupe, Maori artifacts, the Endeavour and James Cook, HMS Buffalo (sunk in 1840), kauri timber and gum, the old Dairy Factory itself and early settlers’ records and a wonderful photographic collection – it was beautifully curated. It was a morning very well spent!
