Yesterday, we were reminded of the value of getting off the highway and following minor roads. We found some nice beaches and lovely scenery away from the Motorway and instead, along the original highway to the north of New Zealand.
We left Auckland on the motorway that crosses the harbor bridge in quite dense traffic in the morning. Once we reached the northern suburbs, the traffic lessened and became more relaxed. At one place, we saw a tun off to abeachside town named Orewa and decided to take it. We had no idea what we would find but this decision set us up for entire day.
We found the Lions Club lookout at the end of the town beach. It wasn’t much of a view but this beach was typical of all the sandy beaches that we would find over the remainder of the day.
The map showed us that we could follow the coast to the north without needing to get back onto the Motorway. Our next visit on our exploration was a large and scenic regional park.It was a pleasure to sit under some of the big trees for a while and take in the surroundings.
By now, Jill was getting depersate for a coffee and we found some signs pointing to the historic village of Puhoi. What a delightful place! The general store made a goood cafe latte and the old hotel and stables were a stunning sight.
We continued on, finding a surf beach at Mangawhai Heads. We bought a pie at the town bakery and then drove along to the beach, hoping to find a peaceful lunch spot. No such luck! The carpark was full so we ate our pie in the furthest corner of the car park with gravy running down my arm. Again, this wa a nice broad beach with white sand.
The inlet behind the sand dunes looked much more serene than the surf beach.
KIwi beach fashions looked very cute.
We had read in the weekend paper that the beach a little further on at Waipu Cove had been named NZ’s best beach. To me, it looked like any other beach – perhaps the award came from the green grass and beach infrastructure rather than the sand and waves. There was a very scenic little steam that flowed into the cove at the southern end that deserved to be photographed.
Closer to our destination. of Whangerei, we saw a sign pointing to a tourist road. We though that we already on a very scenic route but decided to explore. Somehow we missed at least one sign and fouund ourselves at the gates of the Marsden Point Oil Refinery. Back tracking, we found a sign that pointed west and somehow found ourselves in the middle of a new housing development constructed along a series of canals. Each of the large houses seemd to have a big boat tied up to its dock. Eventally, we made our way along a route with many turns to Whangerei where we found our motel about four kilomteres north of the town.
These were the mountains behind the refinery.
