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Our Holiday in Mangonui, July 2005
The text below is taken from an email I sent to friends shortly after the holiday, though the page has been created in May 2007.
We left here Tuesday morning, a bit earlier than expected. I'd planned to let Nigel sleep as long as he wanted, and done most of the packing the night before, but the phone rang a few times and that woke him. Never mind, we got off on the journey okay. Stopped at a cafe near Kerikeri for lunch.
If you're interested in the route we took, take a look at this map. Kaiwaka, where I live, is in the bottom half of the map, between Whangarei in the north and Warkworth in the south, on the red road marked as State Highway 1 (the 1 inside a red shield is the symbol for SH1) - that's the main road through our town. We followed SH1 north until it met with State Highway 10, between Moerewa and Ohaeawai, then turned right onto SH10, which took us to Mangonui.
The drive was shorter than I'd been expecting, and we soon found ourselves at the motel. Absolutely gorgeous view from the motel, across the bay. Mill Bay is a small bay just around the corner from the Mangonui township (see map below).
We took a quick drive around the area in the afternoon, with Nigel showing me what he knew of the area from his speedway trips to Taipa. The drive from Mangonui to Taipa was no more than ten minutes, and that was with stopping for road works, so it's a fairly small area. Mostly full of holiday houses, but plenty of people live in the area all year around. We had fish and chips from the Mangonui Fish Shop that night, which is famous in NZ for being the most popular takeaways in the country. Have to admit, they were pretty good, and about half the price that we pay at home!
Wednesday morning, I took off on my own and left Nigel to sleep at the motel. I'd seen a sign at Taipa pointing the way to a couple of potteries the day before, so went off in search of them. They were well off the 'beaten track' and I almost wished we'd brought the car with four-wheel drive at a couple of points, but I found the places okay. Their stuff was nice, but not what I was looking for, so went away empty-handed. I did find a starfish mobile/hanging at a store in Mangonui, which I've bought for my sister for Christmas. :-)
In the afternoon, Nigel and I made the short walk over the hill from the motel to the Mangonui township. Wandered through a few places, and stopped at a cafe for a cooling beer, which we drank while sitting outside watching the harbour - and the traffic going past, which turned out to be a good thing! Next thing I know, Nigel says he knows the woman who just drove past - her partner is a fellow stockcar driver. She stopped just across the road, so Nigel scooted over to say hi. Marie came and joined us for a short time (she was out running errands for her work, so couldn't stay long), and was able to give us another friend's phone number so we could catch up with him.
Called the number we'd been given, and it turned out that Barry was not at work that day, and heading our way, so he picked us up and drove us back over the hill to the motel, where we proceeded to have a big catch-up. We've been racing with him for years, and he moved to Taipa two years ago.
That night, we went to the Mangonui Hotel and met up with Barry again - and a couple of other speedway friends, unexpectedly! That was an added bonus. :-) They were both in town for their work, and staying at the hotel that night. Sat around and had a few drinks and dinner, then headed home again.
Thursday, we headed out together in the morning. Everyone had been telling us we had to drive around the bay (Doubtless Bay, that is) to see the scenery, so that's what we did. Headed west first, out past Taipa and then up the Karikari Peninsular, to Matai Bay. There's a big reserve and camping ground there, which I can imagine would be absolutely packed with people in summer, but being the middle of winter we saw no more than half a dozen people.
Matai Bay is just spectacular. There are two bays, with a little headland between them, and I can imagine that if one is windy one day, all you'd need to do is go to the other for shelter. Bliss! We did a little walking along the beach, and Nigel followed the track that runs between the two beaches, while I took the car around. We were so impressed with the place that we bought a print of a painting of the bay when we went back to Mangonui in the afternoon, which I'll be hanging in our bedroom to remind us of the holiday. :-)
Then it was back on the road, and back through Taipa, Mangonui, etc, and around to Hihi at the eastern end of the bay. Another gorgeous place, with many homes looking shut up for the winter, so hardly anyone around.
After that, we decided to go a bit further around the coastline to check out a place we'd been told about, Taupo Bay. Well, we've found our new winter holiday spot! It's a remote village, with mostly holiday houses that were empty that day, and hardly anyone around. Lots of the houses are for rent, so we'll be looking at that for next year, I expect. Remote, but still close enough to 'civilisation' for things like groceries and stuff, since Mangonui is less than a half-hour drive away.
More Taupo Bay photos, and here.
We were tired after the day's travels, so rather than go back to the pub and meet our friends again, we had a quiet night at the motel.
At 5:30am Friday I was woken by the people in the unit next to us pinging their car alarm. Wouldn't have minded just the once, but they did it several times! Then lots of voices as they moved about, and ran the car's engine for a good five minutes before leaving! From what we saw of them, and comments from the motel owners later on, they were foreigners and probably very new to the country. The poor people went to Mt Maunganui, which sounds almost the same as Mangonui but is a few hours south of Auckland, by mistake at the beginning of the week.
By 5:50 I'd decided that I wasn't going to get back to sleep, and made a cup of tea and finished the book I'd been reading. Nigel didn't get a good sleep-in, either, since the staff went in to clean that unit quite early. Oh well, that's life!
We were on the road heading home before 10am (the checkout time), and were home a little after midday, having stopped at Kerikeri for fuel, then our local shops and post office for supplies before we got home (which took a good twenty minutes or so!). The animals were pleased to see us, as I was them! Nice to get home, and sleep in my own bed. :-) Had a big grey lump (aka Joseph, our rather large Persian cat) join me in bed during the night, which he doesn't do very often.
We were so lucky with the weather while we were away! The forecast was pretty dire, and I half-expected that we'd spend most, if not all, of our time cooped up in the motel, but we had lovely sunny mornings and just a few showers of rain in the afternoon, and it wasn't overly cold, either. Not bad for the middle of winter!
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