Walking to Cook's Beach

After the long and winding drive up to Whitianga the previous day, we spent much of the second day of our trip walking and getting lost! In the morning, we took the ferry across the harbour mouth to Ferry Landing (another name which pretty much is what it says on the tin), which took all of about two minutes. From there we explored a great deal of the Whitianga Rock Historic and Scenic reserve, walking up first to an old pa site. From the top, we got a great view over to Whitianga town itself (which is where the first picture in the last blog was taken from). Walking down from there, we entered a very scenic and secluded bay, and made our first attempt at climbing over the volcanic plug and hills to Front Beach and Flaxmill Bay. I say 'first attempt' because somehow or other we managed to take the wrong turning on a not-particularly-well-signposted path and ended up trying to scale a vertical and just about impenetrable sheer rock face! I'm really not sure how that happened, though I guess we should have been alerted by the fact that the undergrowth was quite difficult to get through.... Once we were close to the top of our 'path not (usually) taken' we ran into a stone wall with no apparent way over the top. Curiously, however, this virtually unpassable rock-face had a ledge cut out of it with a wooden picnic-table perched precariously on top of it. With some contorted manouvering, Dan managed to climb up to it, and we found lots of smashed beer bottles littered around, evidence that this was some kind of hidden manly haunt! This didn't, however, solve our problem of how to get up and over the hill... Accepting the inevitable, we went back the way we came... Halfway back, we came across another track that didn't really look like a track. Torn between not wanting to get lost again and wanting to find a quicker way over than going all the way back to the bottom again, we chanced our luck. Fortunately, it was indeed the right track. We could tell by the way it wasn't overgrown, wasn't as steep and didn't end in a vertical cliff-face.... The first photo is a view back down from the top.

Feeling pretty hot and bothered, we arrived on the road from Ferry Landing to Flaxmill Bay, probably not very far from where we had got off the ferry a couple of hours beforehand! In need of some sustenance, we stopped at Eggcentric cafe for an early lunch. Despite the terrible name, this cafe was great! Nice food, intriguing artwork (if not always exactly good...) and plenty of colourful letter-boxes outside. I had seared scallops for lunch - yum! Scallops are a regional specialty and Whitianga holds a Scallop festival each year.

After lunch, we walked up to Shakespeare's Lookout, which gave a great view out over Mercury Bay (the whole area, including Whitianga and the various bays and beaches surrounding it). We also spotted copious native trees and birds, including nesting oyster-catchers, en route. From there, we walked down to Lonely Bay, a sheltered spot, round the corner from the more populous Cook's Beach. I think this beach was probably my favourite of the trip (although there was serious competition). It was not very busy, and was well-shaded (very important in the fierce NZ sun), with lovely, inviting turquoise water. It must be said that its prime position on my list of beaches, may be due to the fact that we had walked for ages in the baking sun ... Photo three is a view of the beach at Lonely Bay, while photo four is a view looking down on it from the lookout (with Cook's Beach in the background).

After sunning and swimming (as well, of course, as slip-slop-slapping), we decided to keep walking round to Cook's Beach. This was much bigger than Lonely Bay and more people were enjoying its undoubted charms. The great thing about this residential beach is that it doesn't seem to have been too swamped with huge, expensive beach houses...yet. It still seemed quite laidback and informal, although I'm sure the humble-looking bachs retail for mega-bucks. Of course, we stopped for a swim here too, before we hoofed our way back - along the road this time! - to Ferry Landing.