Tawharanui (ta-far-a-noo-ee)

Rhiannon and I, on consecutive weekends awhile back, made the quick 80 minute drive up to Tawharanui Regional Park. It has a beach. It has a native bird sanctuary. It has great camping too. And hiking trails. Oh and rock pools. I'm just really excited to tell you about it.

I have to admit that after the extreme uniqueness (is that a thing? If something is unique it can't be anymore or less unique, right?) and breathtaking views that constantly smacked me in the face and occipital lobe on the South Island, I didn't really know if I would capture that feeling of awe again on the North Island. After all, there are a lot of pretty beaches and views in and around and near Auckland, but constant availability makes me unconsciously take them for granted. 

The other thing that the South Island has on its side, and I just realized it as I started typing this, is the relative lack of crowds. Even though Milford Sound and Mt. Cook and the glaciers are the most well-known sights in NZ, they aren't easy to get to. That makes the number of people cramming themselves up and down hiking paths and along the narrow roadways limited. One thing I really like about travelling is the perception, whether real or not, of doing something that is rare, of experiencing a place at a certain time that not many other people in the world will ever do. Much of the South Island gives you that feeling - setting up camp in dense and shrouded woodland, kayaking underneath a waterfall, being one of ten or so people at a reflective Alpine lake. 

Near Auckland, the beaches are often pretty populated. Not like Copacabana crowded, but you definitely don't get the sense that you're experiencing it on your own. As an occasional hater of crowds (not strictly agoraphobic, just don't like them), this can be pretty annoying. Tawharanui, due to its relative lack of fame coupled with the fact that you have to drive on gravel roads for several kms before reaching the park, doesn't suffer from these crowds nearly as much.

All of this is to say that if you arrive at Tawharanui on a clear Saturday summer's eve (which we did the first weekend there), you get the whole damn thing practically to yourself:

Smiling because no one's here.

A dusty sunset guides us to our picnicking location.

Action shot! Caw-ca-caw-ca-caw!

I mean this particular evening was incredibly clear, like contemporaneous gigantic moon-rise and sunset clear:  

The moon races above the opposing burning horizon.

And then some humans got in the way.

Descend a few vacant steps, slip your toes into the world's softest sand, and let your cares melt away.

I mean just look how empty that is. Also, pretty.

And this was mid to late January, so the water was perfect for swimming.

Picture of Rhiannon testing the water and taking picture of surf. Included:  no one else.

Did I mention it was a really clear night?

You get the point, so here is an artsy photo from atop a nearby hill/rock. It was a really great rock.

So like, job done, right? Some amount of travelling was performed. I've shown you a really nice evening spent in a vacant and beautiful regional park. I probably convinced you that it's totally possible to find a not crowded beach near Auckland. 

But wait, there's more. The next weekend, Rhiannon and I returned. We suspected that we hadn't seen everything Tawharanui has to offer. We bivouacked in a lovely little camping area surrounded by some pretty odd looking native birds, called Pukekos (poo-kek-oh):

I suspect these would be extremely delicious.

Back to the beach, where washed up dead things and rock pools provided hours of entertainment:

Yes this is a penguin. Yes this is sad. And yes it was poked with a stick.

Adorable, prickly, and deadly. I'd say this pufferfish employed excellent camouflage.

The beach's rock pools, which span probably 4-5 acres at low tide, are home to crabs and mussels and sea slugs and numerous types of fish, but by far the best thing caught us completely by surprise:

This legitimately freaked me out as I was a half second away from stepping into this pool.

We could simply goad the octopus into chasing us out of its pool. Clearly guarding something.

"You kids get off my lawn."

So cool and unexpected. We spent a solid half an hour with this octopus, eventually finding out it had a nearby (lazy and useless) mate. We came back an hour later to find it chasing away small crabs from a different pool. Those pictures are great, but the video below does it proper justice. Thanks Tawharanui for giving me my favorite nature encounter in New Zealand to date, and for giving me a jolt of uniqueness and awe once again.

Cheers!

Awkward People, Beautiful Backdrops

I had originally planned to have one last South Island trip blog post in which I showed you a ton of the really majestic postcard-esque pictures taken by Joe with his expensive camera and outdoors photography expertise. It would be called something totally predictable like "Pack Travel Part V." Then I started looking through the photos and changed my mind completely...

People spend a lot of time trying to have the perfect pose for pictures. Don't believe me, a quick search of 'selfie posing techniques' revealed this, and this, and this.

While a great picture of someone (you, a loved one, Barry Obama) can get a lot of likes, and maybe even some stalkers, the funny and awkward pictures are the most memorable. In our modern social media driven society, how often do people post the embarrassing pictures? The ones that are ruined by the face or pose the person(s) is making in it. Without further ado, here is a gallery of these photos, from the archives of Joe Katarksy, taken with the beautiful backdrop of many New Zealand scenes. I'll also be providing you with a plethora of synonyms for 'awkward', though here is a more complete list. 

At Castle Hill:

My ungainly hobbit feet are proficient at gripping rocky surfaces.

K:  Just leave me here, save yourself.
L: K bye.

I actually think is a pretty cool picture. I mean just look at the bill of this Batman hat. 

I spy with my little eye:  something veiny, clearly very dehydrated. 

At Arthur's Pass:

I don't really understand why Joe took this rather cloddish picture of two random women. Or why he shared it with me.  

An unfortunate yet excellent example of why sunglasses matter.

Campsite at Lake Pearson:

The sun sets over a tent that highly educated fools ungracefully took way too long to set up improperly.

When you live out the back of a car, heavy-handed splash-of-water 'showers' and sandfly repellent applications are a must.

On the hike up to Mueller Hut at Mt. Cook:

The exasperated look of "We've been climbing stairs for an hour and aren't even halfway to the summit yet."

Joe's unwieldy enthusiasm after reaching the summit. 

Wipe that shit-eating grin off your face, Eric. 

The South Coast at sunset:

Again just a pretty cool picture. I'm only awkwardly in it to demonstrate the reflective sheen of the receding tide.

Into the Fiordlands:

I believe Michael is air-drying his hands here, but I like to think he's displaying his gangling T-Rex pose.

In which Lee poses quite normally, Michael takes his power pose, and I generally ruin the whole damn thing.

And again with the inelegant pointing at the camera. You like that?! 

Rhiannon thinks this a good advertisement for cold-weather gear.

And on the kayak trip in Milford Sound:

An amphibious mountain man; up close and personal with Joe on the kayak.

The whole group, and probably our best picture together. Not that awkward if you disregard the spray flaps.

Okay maybe a lot of those pictures weren't awkward. So just to drive the point home, here's one more for good measure. On the flight back to Auckland:

Two weeks of thorny beard growth, sunburn, and hanging out with goofy people caused this.

Cheers!