VulcanSpirit - Wonderful NZ

Wonderful NZ

VulcanSpirit

Richard & Alison Brunstrom

Tue 11 Dec 2012 11:45

We've taken yet more time off from fixing the boat (under threat of mutiny from half of the crew) to go and see some of NZ's beatiful scenery. This has been much helped by a marked improvement in the weather; summer may have arrived (last year it didn't bother to come at all apparently).

So here is Ocean Beach, on the east coast near the entrance to the Hatea River upon which Whangarei sits. This is sometimes a surf beach but at present as you can see surfing is a bit pointless. I haven't airbrushed the people out - the beach really is nearly deserted, despite have a beautifully constructed car park and boardwalk access complete as normal in NZ with spotlessly clean, ecologically sound and functioning public toilets.

We're off for a walk up Bream Head at the southern end of the beach. Here is Ali, all decked out for a walk in NZ;

NZ has the world's highest incidence of skin cancer; over 300 deaths per annum. The ozone layer here has all but disappeared so there's lots of UV light, and we're at 35 degrees south; taken together these facts mean that the sun is to be taken seriously here hence the factor 50 suncream and the hat with neck flap. Keen observers may note that our model is decked out in brand new walking boots and poles. NZ's premier outdoor shop, Kathmandu, has a pre-Christmas sale with 50-60% off everything. A wonderful idea to get people to buy things as the walking season starts rather than after it has ended as it's done in the UK. So we've spent loads; top quality gear dead cheap.

You can see behind Alison a clump of gorse. Some lunatic introduced this here a hundred years ago, allegedly as a quick growing stock barrier, a purpose for which it is entirely unsuited. It has gone mad here, and is now a serious pest.

Good news re the ozone layer, by the way. The worldwide ban on the chemicals that were destroying it (largely from aerosol sprays) in the 1990s has worked. The ozone layer is recovering and by 2050 itshould be back to 1980s levels.

Anyway, back to Bream Head. Here is a view out to sea showing the coastal forest and the offlying Hen & Chickens rocks (all protected nature reserves, which in NZ means exactly that; they are reserved for nature, with no public access at all).

This is a big bit of forest, all now very strictly protected. The ugly iron stump in the foreground is the point of the photo though. It is the remains of a 1942 radar station, built when there was a serious fear of Japanese invasion. How the world has changed in just a few years. Incidentally NZ suffered the highest proportionate casualty rate of any combatant nation in WW2 - worse even than the USSR. Bet you didn't know that.

And below is the view up the Hatea estuary from Bream Head towards Whangarei. The degree of change wrought upon the NZ landscape by Europeans in an astonishingly short period is quite amazing. NZ had no native mammals, so no grazing, so no grassland, so few flowers and few insects. Almost the whole country was covered in forest when the Europeans arrived - now North Island at least looks like a version of England. But sadly with very few tea shops.

And a view from the top of the Head looking west across the bay:

NZ has a government Department of Conservation (another thing the UK could usefully copy) who do a truly wonderful job. The forest here is the best remaing coastal broadleaf in North Island, and great for birds. DoC manage the trails (to an extremely high standard), control pests (possums introduced from Australia which destroy the trees by eating the growing crowns - trees here evolved in the absence of herbivorous mammals, stoats weasels and ferrets introduced from the UK to eat the rabbits introduced from the UK - unfortunately stoats would much rather eat groundnesting birds than rabbits) and generally do a great job of conserving NZ's natural heritage.

And lastly, here is Smugglers' Cove at the western end of Bream Head, right at the river mouth. Another beautiful empty bay. But why Smugglers' Cove? This is not Kent or Cornwall! Presumably it was reminiscent of the UK's south coast and the name stuck. Anyway, it's a lovely place. The grassy bit in the centre is a cattle farm, with skylarks (also introduced from the UK, as was the grass).