Tokerau Beach

Our night at Tauranga Bay was pretty peaceful, and the naughty boys remained quiet. However, crowded camps are not really our style so we moved on in the morning. Marg and Kevin headed off in their own direction (they went to look at Taupo Bay which we saved for another day), and Tina and John again played tour guides and took us to Whangaroa Harbour. We had to laugh at Tina’s tour guide skills sometimes eg. stopping at an intersection with indicators going one way, and then the other: but we managed to work out her meaning.

Whangaroa was a cute little place, with mussel farms in the harbour.

Whangaroa was just a little place, but obviously a place that those with some disposable income escape to. There was quite a large marina here with some nice looking boats.

There was one poor boat that looked a bit unloved, but the bay was lovely with the silhouette of the hills behind.

Next stop was following the road over the hill which led us to the towns of Manganui. I had set my heart on fish and chips at the famous fish shop that is on piles over the water. However, the place was packed and there was absolutely nowhere we could stop, so we had no choice but to continue on. I made Bruce promise that we would go back! At one stage, when I was in my early 20’s, my father owned a hardware store here, but it was not identifiable now. He also did a small subdivision in Cable Bay, but I really can’t remember where. I only visited it once before he moved south to Whangarei.

Our lunch stop for the day was beautiful Taipa Bay. This was another beautiful beach, but clearly not as wealthy as some of the other places we have been to. It was great to see families out and about and having a good time. There were quite a few people swimming as well, (a bit cold for me).

After a leisurely lunch we headed on up the Karekare Penninsula to a place called Tokerau Beach. There is a NZMCA Park here but the neighbours are not pleased with the existence of the park and make it known! Therefore, we elected to stay on a Park Over Property, which was just charming. Marg and Kevin caught up with us here. That was a very good thing, because Kevin had a fishing drone and we were anxious to see how it worked.

The drone does not handle conditions that are too windy, but the next day was calm and the conditions just right, so we headed off to the beach. It didn’t seem to take long to set up, and Kevin walked round in a circle one way, then the other, holding the drone to his chest, to programme the drone (to let it know where it was).

Then with hooks baited and attached to the drone, it was sent off 450m out to sea.

At the push of a button, the drone dropped the line which was then only attached to the rod, and we waited. The drone duly appeared from the horizon, and carefully landed itself back where it had started from. It did not seem to take very long before we saw the rod tip bend over. The downside of having the line dropped that far out was that it took a lot of winding in! Just as well there were 3 men to take turns!

The result was two nice snapper for tea. Although the drone was sent out twice more, there were no more fish caught, but we had plenty for tea. The team wanted to be sure I got my fish and chips, so Tina and John provided the chips from their van, Marg and Kevin did the fish, and Bruce and I provided a green salad. Can’t get better than that!