Fantail Bay to Fletcher Bay

Fantail bay to Fletcher Bay.

The night is filled with half-waking moments as rain spatters through the heavy branches of the tree we have parked under and smack into the roof of our campervan. Finally we give up on sleep and really open our eyes to air so thick with moisture it is practically raining inside our van.

Breakfast is the usual - Fake-o-Wheatbix for me and oatmeal with raisins for Christina. After unrumpling ourselves the best we can and making the obligatory visit to the less-fearsome of the campsite's long drops, I pull forward around our sheltering tree and out of the park's, as the way we drove in is beginning to look boggier than I trust our campervan to back through.

The rain is basically done as we drive north along the coast. The unsealed road ahead of us is certainly no better than it was last night, and under the onslaught of what must have been at least a couple of inches of rain is rather muddy in places and full of bone-jarring potholes. We wind up and down, dodging the occasional other vehicle and enjoy the views. Up here there are no holiday homes, just the occcasional worn farmhouse and the undulating hillside patchwork of cattle-tracked green, pine forest plantation, and regenerating bush. After a bit, we skid down a muddy clay stretch of the road into Port Jackson, which is nothing more than a cluster of a few farm buildings and some road maintenance equipment parked in a neat row on a nearby rise. A bit of confusion ensues as we debate which path of the road's fork to take, but a careful examination of the rather unhelpful road signs eventually clears matters up. Course decided, Christina pops out to open a gate and I drive through into Fletcher Bay Recreational Reserve. For a bit, the road seems to have improved, but that turns out to be a delusion fostered by the fact that its course runs briefly through a flatter, broader way. Momentarily, we find ourselves once again climbing and descending the outside lane of a narrow, gravel path which appears to have been surveyed by a rather drunken engineer. Though we are in a protected area, we are still surrounded by grazing land and cattle and sheep. I still have not found out exactly how that arrangment works, since it's pretty obviously (from the visible amounts of erosion) not good for the conservation aspect of the park, but perhaps it's like we were used to at Point Reyes, where privately-owned farms were allowed to continue within the park, but no new development was permitted.

A few kilometers along and we find ourselves faced with the first ford of the day. It's at the bottom of quite a dip in the road and is swollen and running swiftly near the middle from last night's rainfall. We get out of the van, find a stick, and begin poking as far towards the center of the watercourse as we are able. It turns out that the stream is really no more than 6-8 inches deep at the worst (at least that we can feel), and that the bottom appears to be layers of gravel rather than mud. We get back in the van and through we go! Perhaps on the upslope the tires slipped a bit, but we were soon through and on our way.

A couple more kilometers along the north coast of peninsula, and we drive down into the DOC campground at Fletcher Bay. The wind is blowing strongly, and the surf is crashing just a few meters from the beach, then gushing up the sand in frothy waves. We park a ways back from the water in a cowpie-strewn meadow that is at least somewhat sheltered from the wind, quickly nibble lunch, then set off on the hike which runs around the NE tip of the peninsula to Stony Bay. As with virtually everywhere we have gone on the Coromandel peninsula, we are criss-crossing in and out of beef cattle and sheep farms. The track is muddy and half-overgrown with the thick green grass which seems to carpet this entire section of the world. We clamber uphill, looking north out over the Colville Channel at Great Barrier Island, crossing fences, getting suspicious stares from skittish cattle, and fighting a strong headwind and the occasional burst of rain. The views everywhere are beautiful, and we make far slower time than expected on the track because we find ourselves stopping every 5 minutes to take pictures or investigate some unfamiliar plant or bird. Right at the coast, there are sections fenced off from grazing which are thick with native brush. Where the hillsides plunge into ravines, water trickles down to the ocean through groves thick with tree ferns, mossy trees and rocks.

After an hour and a half, we begin to descend from our path high above the sea. Here the trail runs steeply through switchbacks covered by 10-metere tree ferns and overhung by great gnarled trees whose hanging branches are half-covered by a nest epiphyte which we have seen elsewhere, but not yet in such great numbers. (epiphytes in NZ: http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-Bio28Tuat02-t1-body-d1.html) Nikau palms dot the undergrowth, elder specimens occasionally breaking through the canopy to point their shaving-brush fronds at the sky. Light is dim until we come to the bottom of the trail and walk out into Poley Bay.

Poley Bay is very small, not much more than a beach perhaps 50 meters wide and 20 meters deep, bordered on each edge by steep, rocky bluffs. Though their numbers are nothing compared to some of the other beaches we have seen in NZ, the shell selection on the beach is fantastic, and we alternate between staring out at the island-dotted sea and peering at the shell-spotted sand. Perhaps our favorite find are the numerous small-but-whole abalone shells, glowing with their iridescent sheen. Here and there in niches on the bluff edges are left the collections of previous visitors, which we examine but leave in place.

We clamber over some slippery rocks and watch the waves roll in. After awhile, conscious that we really don't want to be making the return trek in the dark, Christina and I set out back to the van. We make much better time on the way back, and after eating dinner listening to the local farmer round up his cows on a motorbike, finish out the night with a walk on the beach, watching the moonlit waves roll in. It's chilly again and despite a clear sky and a breathtaking view, we are soon crawling back in the campervan for the night.