We boarded our water taxi on a trailer towed behind a tractor at the Aqua Taxi office, and we must have looked a little weird wearing our life jackets as we cruised down the main road of Marahau towards the boat launch ramp. After years of providing this service the company has obviously figured out the most efficient way to get 5 or 6 boat loads of people, many with kayaks, from the office and into the water within a few minutes of the scheduled 9 AM departure time.
We had opted for the Seals and Sand trip as it was cheaper than the two one way rides that we needed, and so the first stop was to visit the much photographed granite boulder in the next bay, known as Split Apple Rock, for obvious reasons.
The water taxi was powered by a single 225 HP Honda engine and we were soon skimming across the waves towards our first stop at Anchorage, where most of the passengers disembarked, either to start the 11 Km walk south back to Marahau, or to begin a kayak trip. We stayed on board until the next stop at Torrent Bay.
From Torrent Bay we hiked north along the well-maintained trail through beautiful bush toward Bark Bay, 7.7 Km away.
About halfway to Bark Bay the trail crosses the Falls River on a suspension bridge. From the centre of the bridge I chatted with a lone kayaker who had paddled in from the river mouth at Sandfly Bay.
Bark Bay had a beautiful sandy beach so we had lunch and a wade in the shallows. As we ate our lunch we watched a seagull remove a brown paper bag from someone's backpack and start to make off down the beach with it. I managed to recover the bag and put it back in the backpack before the owner returned, but the seagull tried a couple more times before finally giving up.
After lunch we continued north for another 6.1 Km to our scheduled pickup at Onetahuti, another beautiful sandy bay.
The trip home began with a visit to nearby Tonga Island, where we spied a few seal pups among the rocks at low tide, and then after a pick up at Bark Bay, and a drop-off at Kaiteriteri, we returned to Marahau. As the tide was well out beyond the boat ramp, the trailer was waiting in the water and the skipper drove straight onto the trailer and we were immediately hauled up onto the beach for the return journey to the office.
It was a great day's hiking, and with none of us too tired, we stopped at Mapua on the way home and enjoyed fish and chips out of the paper on the dock.
No comments:
Post a Comment