Friday, February 13: Cloudy at first, clearing to light cloud with a bit of a southerly breeze

Chinara’s

Kayaking: 10.0 km
Tramping: 5.2 km

• GPS Tour
• Topo Map
• Youtube Video

There wasn’t much sound from above, so at around 8:00 I went upstairs and the two were sleeping in. Couldn’t quite stomach breakfast and only had a coffee. Pretty soon the courier with my emergency equipment arrived which was audible because the guy had his radio playing loudly and I was able to intercept him before he had to search far. Eventually I. made an appearance and then Chinara, who busily telephoned around to organise the remainder of her day.

When they were off I sat down at the computer to try to sort out the remaining styles for the blog and schedule the publication of day 1. Went down to the shops looking for the post office but wasn’t looking very hard, or still had blockage from the jet lag and missed it; bought a ham sandwich at a bakery opposite Countdown (they didn’t have prepackaged sandwiches) for $3.9, went back, ate it, checked where the post office was, skyped Tom, took a copy of Te Wai Pounamu down to the post office (now that I had an address) and posted it airmail to my schoolmate Will Peden in Robe for $9.6.

GPS Tour

Then it was time to get everything together for this evening’s kayak tour. This was difficult, but eventually had enough together for the tour (including a reserve camera for the bow) and set off to downtown with a little time to spare.

Strolled down to the ferry building via Queen St and I kept an eye out for a present for Pea, but the souvenir shops were just full of junk. Waited around at the ferry building for a while until a car from Auckland Sea Kayaks turned up. Guide for the day was Zac and we had to pick up three further guests but they were nowhere to be found, and no cell number to call them on. Eventually some minutes after 3:30 they turned up: Dan (Italian) and Jess & Jennifer (both English) and we took off along the coast past Mission Bay to St Heliers where we were to start from. Here we were joined by another woman about my age who was my partner for the paddle. Form had to be filled out on a tablet, while getting into the spray skirt, flotation device, setting up the camera and sundry instructions.

A sea kayak is longer than a double, flat water boat, and the paddlers sit further apart so that paddle clashes are rare. But the biggest difference are the waves, and they can come from both directions, the front (and back) or the side. Both bow and stern are raised and that helps stabilise the whole thing.

Progress across the bay was good, the wind was blowing from the south, and it was predicted to strengthen further for our return, which would make it more difficult. But first we had to get to the island and up the volcano.

We landed on a boat ramp and moved the boats up to the street level, then there was some cake and apple juice, and Zac started cooking the dinner, which was a gristly pork steak, some salads and bread. All in all not a highlight of the trip but as I always say if you want good food, go to a good restaurant.

After tidying up we started on up the volcano at a rather leisurely pace. The ground was very dry, and a bit slippery. We stopped at the crater and then went on to the summit for a view of Auckland (rather obscured by haze) and the islands (mainly Great Barrier and Waiheke) and the Coromandel.

Coming back down again we stopped at a lookout for the sunset where I set up a camera for a sunset time lapse. Something appears to be wrong with the initialising sequence for the SX120 so this should be redeveloped (perhaps on Sunday) to test whether it works as intended. A couple of hikers bombed the sequence (should be quite fun) and the sunset itself was impressive enough. Then it was back down to the boats.

Since it was dark and replacing the batteries requires removing the whole camera from the bag, which is still rather fiddly I decided against trying to shoot the return trip. We were soon in the water and the wind had actually died down, rather than getting worse. So the trip back was perhaps not as fast but it was certainly not more difficult. Our boats has little lights on them to identify us to other boats but when every now and then a ferry passed, we stopped in order to avoid getting in its way.

But the big lights were those of the city. Sky Tower solitary in pink, the intense white of downtown and the harbour, and the playful flashes of tiny red lights on cranes against both the constant lights of the city and, more ominously, the permanent dark of the sky. Above us the Milky Way with Jupiter rising and Venus setting. One or two satellites were also spotted.

By about 10:30 we had reached St Heliers again, this time with the tide out. Here we stripped ourselves of the life vests and spray skirts, unpacked the boats and dry bags, packed everything into Zac’s trailer and car. My partner had already left. Then we were set to go back into town, arriving just after 11:00.

Kayak to Rangitoto

I was lucky to catch a bus almost immediately, and was soon back home. Decided to shower after getting up, and devoted myself to packing.

What a kayak trip! Good to be back in the (warm) waters again!