STEPPING OUT
Lindy Lairdy samples the delights of the Bay of Islands.
With a panorama of islands, sea and sky laid out in front of me, I admire the view from high above Rawhiti and Oke Bay. I can see the Cavalli Islands to the north; faint sounds rise from the boats painting white streaks on the blue water in the Bay and birds sing their hearts out.
We’re on part of the 17km rigorous Cape Brett (Rakaumangamanga) Track, a dragon-backed tramp your average walker-in-the-park would find hard going but experienced trampers relish.
This bushy, mild section winds up through bush, joining the Whangamumu track, and offers two routes down to Russell, the quiet little harbour once home to one of the biggest whaling ports in the Southern Hemisphere.
It’s a great example of how well local conservation values and a fascinating human heritage will come together in the upcoming Bay of Islands Walking Weekend, showcasing the area’s scenery, history and lifestyle.
“Most people associate the Bay of Islands with boating and sea-based activities,” Walking Weekend board trustee William Fuller says. “We aim to show that there is much more here.”
The Friday night “club crawl” starts the Walking Weekend on an appropriate footing. Last year that tour started with six walkers but by the time it got to the last bar, had picked up about 30 more.
Our weekend in Russell/Kororareka started at the historic Duke of Marlborough Hotel.
The site has housed a local watering hole for nigh on 190 years as Johnny Johnston’s Grog Shop opening there in 1827. Customers were the traders, whalers, seamen, prostitutes and runaways who earned the seedy little settlement at the end of the world the title Hell Hole of the Pacific, said to be bestowed by Charles Darwin.
After the grog shop burned down in the mid-1840s Johnston rebuilt, and renamed it the Duke of Marlborough in an attempt at a bit of class, befitting the pub with New Zealand’s first liquor licence. The pub with no peer would burn down twice and be rebuilt.
But the Hell Hole burned in other ways too — with the passions of seamen after a year on board ship; with the coming together of two cultures; the coming of the word of God, and guns; the politics and protocols all that created the Treaty of Waitangi; a bombardment of cannon fire from British warships; and Hone Heke chopping down the flag four times to protest that Queen Victoria wasn’t keeping to her side of the deal.
In the olde-world charm of the Duke’s busy dining room, we pore over a menu highlighting local produce.
To me, it seems the place is pumping but a waiter says it’s fairly quiet for a Friday night.
Fuller tells me later that before this vigour was brought to the Duke by the current community-andtourism-focused ownership, “locals called it The Library, it was so quiet”.
The next night, we eat at Charlotte’s Kitchen on the Paihia pier. Charlotte’s is a funky, fun establishment started in late 2015 “by the rascals and reprobates from the Duke of Marlborough Hotel”.
It’s named for Charlotte Badger, a runaway convict whose story grows all the more fabulous in every telling.
She was a British woman sentenced to seven years’ penal servitude in New South Wales. During a transfer to Tasmania, the story goes, she and her friend Kitty used their charms to incite the crew of The Venus to mutiny. Somehow, they reached the Bay of Islands and, fact or fiction, the legacy of bawdy Charlotte lives on.
Our own shipboard adventure the next day is on board the Tangaroa III, for a cruise to the world-famous Hole in the Rock. The big boat weaves in and out of the islands on the way to the rock, aka Piercy Island, and we hear more about the Bay’s fascinating history.
It’s a windless sunny day, but the swell off Cape Brett means this cruise will not go through the cathedral-sized cavern in the rock.
No matter. Heading back we see New Zealand fur seals, little blue penguins, gannets, shearwaters, sting rays and bottlenose dolphins, who delight their audience, and into the chill September water spill several wet-suited passengers. The dolphins leap and generally show off among the swimmers. Later, an ecstatic German tourist tells me this has been the best day of his month so far in New Zealand.
We have had a fantastic time, too, this entire weekend — experiencing the magic that is uniquely the Bay of Islands.