Great Barrier Island (NOT Great Barrier Reef, nothing to do with Australia's reef!) is an island a 4 1/2 hour ferry east of Auckland.
On the ferry over, the captain saw a whale and slowed the ship so we could take a look, but it never resurfaced. There were some dolphins, I got a good video of one playing in front of the ship.
With a population of around 800, it has a very small-town feel where everyone knows everyone else and everyone is very friendly. We wanted an excuse to visit this island, so we did a 2-week workstay at a backpackers lodge at Medlands beach, one of the nicest beaches we've seen. Our hosts were very good to us, giving us a villa at the top of a hill overlooking the whole Medlands area. There is no central power generation on the island, so it was interesting to see how everyone gets on with a combination of solar, wind, generators and rainwater.
Being a little remote and harder to get to than most places, this island was an unspoilt paradise and it was a good decision to visit. Several amazing beaches, there are massive hills and great scenery. We did a day hike to Mt. Hobson, the highest point on the island, snorkelling and diving for paua in the reef at Medlands, and Kaitoke springs- the most natural hot spring we've seen yet. There's nothing man made, its just a stream of hot water in the bush with pools at different temperatures, some very hot, but no concrete tubs. At the top of the stream there is a pool of about 5ft deep, with a little waterfall of warm water running into it. We spent a bit of time there for sure!
For work I helped repair all the windows in the backpackers, and Jill did a bit of gardening and cleaning out rooms. The owners had loads of chickens so lots of fresh eggs. The island has its own birdlife a little different from the mainland, loads of tui's and wood pigeons, and also lots of Kaka- a kind of wild parrot, but very noisy things.
They also took us down to the social/local pub a couple times, we had our first Guy Fawkes celebration, and also watched our first rugby league game- it was really good, the Kiwis beat the Aussies!
No comments:
Post a Comment