Jan 252015
 
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the view from robyn’s verandah

so we were back up north last week, sal’s aunt had her son, beau staying and we hadnt seen him since our last trip to bali (where he lives), so we piled into the mighty nissan march and buzzed up the coast to rawene again. we went via whangarei, and after lunch at the town basin we headed out to whangarei heads for a squiz.

its a fabulous bit of coastline with a series of stunning, pictursque bays heading all the way out to the heads where there is a fantastic surf beach on the ocean side. kai and i went in to carve a few waves up on the boogy board and it was the perfect break to the trip north.

basically the week was spent wining and dining with robyn and beau, with plenty of tiki touring round the north. i caught up with my old mate andrew dargaville over in panguru and he took kai and I for a day sightseeing around opononi and omapere and the mouth of the hokianga. in an extrodinary coincidence, we visited a cousin of andy’s who has a stunning house perched up above omapere with sweeping views of the hokianga – as we drove off our friend jeremy, in whose bach we are staying, sent me an email and asked what we were up to.

i sent him back a message saying we were just hanging out up north again, and included a pic i had taken from the house – he messaged straight back to say we were in the road where his block of land is! i knew he had a section up north somewhere, but had no idea it was in omapere, or newton rd to be exact!

andy then drove us back to the ngawha hot springs before we caught up with his nephew, tia in kaikohe, whom i havent seen for about 5 years.

the following day we went over to panguru and andy took us to get mussels at mitimiti which is one of the best kept secret  beaches on the west coast, not many get to visit its unspoilt wildness. i had a surf, but it was a bit too cool for kai, we grabbed a big bucket of juicy mussels off the rocks and then headed over to rangi point, where i was given some land when i was here for steve’s funeral many years ago – the fact that it is below the high tide mark is a minor detail!

somehow in the whole week we failed to get any pics of robyn, and there is only one of beau! so sorry, you will just have to use your imagination! last sunday we had a great afternoon at the rawene pub, robyn arranged for a local band to play, they were pretty old school and one of them was the almost famous, tommy ferguson, a pioneer of rock and roll in NZ in the 60’s.

i also did a drive up to ninety mile beach, across to mangonui, down to pahia and opua in the bay of islands and back to rawene thru kawakawa, no one else wanted to come so it was a solo trip!

we drove home on friday, we went the west coast route and stopped off in a little place called baylys beach, about 10kms from dargaville. its a little surf beach town and one of the places i had thought we might try and stay at for a week or so at some point. the surf was perfect, a light offshore breeze and a nice wave. kai and I spent an hour or so in the water and then we had a splendid lunch at a little cafe called the funky fish, the chef is french and made the most amazing pizzas.

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  One Response to “rawene”

  1. What a beautiful scenery down there! Nice food, good music, having a good time!
    Enjoy!
    Carl

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