We meandered down towards Wellington, overnighting at Lake Taupo on the way. Wellington was very wet and windy – no surprises there. We spent a couple of days exploring the city – museums, art galleries and anywhere that looked warm and dry, before catching the Interislander ferry across to the South Island.
April and May have been a bit of a blur, or as Paul describes it – like Groundhog Day. Our days revolve around checking the weather forecasts, sailing or motoring to the next spot if we need to move or empty the tanks or make water, fishing, hiking and maintaining the boat.
The weather is getting progressively colder and greyer and we are waging battle with increasing damp from condensation inside. There just aren’t enough sunny days to dry things out properly any more. The islands are still very beautiful though, even in the mist and rain.
During this time we have gone from very strict level 4 lockdown to level 3 (which wasn’t much different for us) and we are now in level 2 which means that we can start to travel further afield. We had planned to sail further down the coast to Auckland but have now decided that it would be better to do this another time when the weather is warmer. There is a project that we want to carry out that requires us to be in a marina berth so that is where we are now and Mari will probably stay here for the next 4 months or so. After the boat jobs are done the aim is to do some land based travel.
The new viewing platform at the top of Roberton Island 
One of the new signposts on the walk up Roberton Island 
First night of level 2 – we ate out at a restaurant! “The Gables” at Russell 
The tunnel on the cycle track from Opua (the track was converted from an old railway track) 
The place we walked to on the Cape Brett track. 
View from the hut on the Cape Brett track 
New Zealand is about to go into full lockdown for at least 4 weeks. This means (amongst other things) that only essential services will be available and movement in and out of marinas will be restricted. It seems that most marinas are not letting boats in or out at all during lockdown. Luckily we are fairly well provisioned and Mari is in pretty good shape so we will just leave the marina and live on the hook.
We made a quick trip up to Paihia to collect the repaired wind generators that had kindly been picked up from the workshop by our friend Philip, just in the nick of time before official NZ lockdown. After spending the night just outside Russell, we made our way to Whangaroa Harbour where we planned to stay for at least a few days.
Whangaroa harbour is spectacularly beautiful, with towering rocky outcrops, surrounding mountains and calm waters. There are numerous walking trails in the region and we are doing our best to explore the region without violating the rules of lockdown. So far we have done the Duke’s Nose track and the Wairakau Streams track which are very close to our anchorage in Rere bay.
The Duke’s Nose 
One of the handrails 
From the top 
More from the top
Wairakau streams walking track 
The last day of March we did a day trip up to Mangonui. There’s a very pretty township which we didn’t visit and a famous fish and chip shop which we also didn’t visit (a local paddling by on his kayak told us it was closed anyway). We caught another fish on the way back! We chose a different anchorage back in Whangaroa and were rewarded by a magnificent sunset.
Fish caught between Mangonui and Whangaroa. 
Our wandering home is now safely on the ground in Whangarei for a while. She has kept us safe in all sorts of conditions. Thanks Mari.
Safely tucked up in Whangarei Marina next to Willpower. What a lovely surprise to see Chris and Ingrid again.