(Once again apologising for the long gap. Again, posts will be dated back to the actual time they happened. Life has been throwing twists and turns again, but a quick summary is I’m back in Auckland now, working full time. More details to come, but for now I’m going to try and catch up on the adventures that slotted in between now and the last posts!)
18th/19th June - Crew Trip to Great Barrier Island The trip was awesome! Totally worth driving all the way back up for, it was great just to see everyone again and to get to hang out. We had about 38 people on board in the end, including partners and babies. Everyone got cabins (luxury!) and I definitely took advantage of the constant hot shower access (so many showers). To start with we took the boat out and started motoring off towards Great Barrier. It's about four hours from Auckland on the Ipipiri, with some amazing views going past Rangitoto and Waiheke then up the harbour with the whole coromandel peninsula spread out alongside. We had clear blue skies and sunshine for long stretches, and we were sitting up the saloon to watch the world go by and hunt for whales and dolphins. Naturally, it was the middle of lunch when we found them, but it was worth the food going cold! A pod of over a hundred common Dolphins came up to check out the boat, jumping in our bow waves and around our wake. We reckon they were chasing fish, there were plenty of birds overhead looking for their share, but they weren't in any hurry and were very happy to come out on a show and play with us. Then it was up to the island! Great Barrier is a pretty big island, there's a small airport and a ferry runs out there occasionally (although it's a long trip). A lot of native bush and DOC campsites, it's also adjacent to Little Barrier Island which is a completely isolated nature reserve - the shoreline is all tall cliffs except for one very small shingle beach where the DOC occasionally risk mooring their boats, so there's no way for predators to get there. We dropped anchor near a bay on great barrier and a few of us took the tender across to a beach area that's been built into a way station for boat travelling long distances around. There's a little bathhouse with a firewood powered water heater, a set of old school water squeezers, toilets and even a bookshelf like hostels have, where you can swap books around. We did a bit of a walk inland up the hills to check out the views, hindered a little by half of us not having shoes, then headed back to the beach for a paddle before tendering back to the boat for sea biscuiting! What is sea biscuiting? It's when you inflate a giant circular disk (biscuit) and tie it into your motorboat than drag it along behind until you fall off! I went on with Chloe and we fell off many times, but it was awesome fun. She was mostly better at balancing than me, except for the moment when she started slipping off and decided the solution was to grab the back of my life jacket so I was pulled off too!
