Camping at Waitawa

During our Sabbatical, Martin and I are hoping to go camping every four weeks' or so.  Around 6 weeks ago we were at Ambury Park, and a few weeks after that it was our church camp.  Last week we were off again, this time to a new-to-us regional park called Waitawa.  All the extra exercise I've been doing during the Sabbatical has really improved my fitness, and it felt realistic to try for a campsite 35km away from the nearest train station :-)

 

We caught the train to Newmarket then on to Manukau (ideally we would have taken it all the way to Takaanini, but that portion of the network was shut for maintenance), then biked through the Botanic Gardens and Totara Park to Clevedon and on to Waitawa.

Going through the Botanic Gardens and Totara Park wasn't the best route.  It took us off the roads, but also included unnecessary hills and gravel - we won't be going that way again.

This kind man was concerned, seeing me sitting on the side of the road half-way up a big hill (Mill Rd).  He parked where it was safe then came back to check on me, bringing water and snacks, then insisted on pushing my bike up the hill when I declined the other offerings :-)

Our route took us through Clevedon, where Martin was amused at how à propos our lunch was, including smashed avocado on sourdough :-)
 

The avocado has a bit of a story.  A couple of weeks back we dropped off bags of kikuyu to the green waste section of the Pātiki Rd transfer station, and I was startled to see avocados on the ground.  Someone had dropped off avocado tree trimmings, and we ended up picking up 25 fully developed (but unripe) avocados.  The internet told me that avocados don't ripen on the tree so are always picked unripe, and to ripen them in the sun.  They've been sitting in a bowl by our front door ever since.  Of those that didn't get given away, 10 are still very green, two are on the turn and 5 have ripened beautifully.  The first of those ripened just before we went away and we had it with lunch the first two days.  It was creamy and yum!

And the sourdough bread is because I thawed out and re-started using my lievito madre Italian sourdough starter a couple of months back.  The most impressive thing I've made so far was Martin's birthday cake (an elderflower and rhubarb savarin - lievito madre is traditionally used for cakes at least as much as bread).

this is unrelated to camping, but I was very pleased with this cake!

Unfortunately our oven comprehensively died a few weeks ago and has yet to be replaced, which has put a bit of a dampner on sourdough experiments.  Just before we went away I looked into making sourdough bread in the crockpot, as the starter needs to keep being fed if I'm keeping it out of the freezer, so it makes sense to keep using it so long as I'm doing that.  It turns out crockpot sourdough bread doesn't really develop much of a crust, but is otherwise fine.  The fragments left in the bag after it was gone were pretty awesome fried up with olive oil, too!

  

 

Around 4 hours after leaving Manukau train station (and after about 2h20 of actual biking) we arrived at the park!  I'd noticed the sign to this park each time we've been to Pōnui, and thought it was a bit sad there was a regional park all the way out there that I'd never be able to get to without a car.  Turns out that's changed :-)  If it doesn't make sense for us to get a lift if we go to Pōnui in the future, we'll likely spend a night at Waitawa before and after the camp, and get all the way to Pōnui without a car instead!

  

Walking down a horse track to the campsite - the council website says it's only accessible by kayak, but that's very much not true!

Our setup - we're very pleased with our new tent :-)  Behind you can see a one-walled shelter that was extremely useful in the rain.  The campsite also features tank water and a long-drop toilet - it's adequate, but pretty basic.

Looking out at Waitawa Bay :-)

We had gorgeous sunsets the first two nights.  And see the spinny thing on the toilet ventilation shaft?  On Thursday when there were very high winds, it was spinning so fast it sounded like a freight train in there!

Waitawa Bay is in a fairly steep valley with lots of high points all around - it was a very significant area in pre-colonial times, with three pā sites really close together.  

 

We didn't make it to any of those this time, but on Tuesday we had lunch at a lookout point with a great view over Karamuramu (the one being mined), Pakihi (the one with all the trees) and Pōnui Islands.

You're only supposed to stay at the Waitawa campsite for two nights in a row, so we'd intended to go on to Duder Regional Park on the Wednesday.  However, the weather was forecast to really close in, so we decided to try our luck and just phoned the council to book another two nights.  We'd forgotten to bring our tarp and the campsite at Duder doesn't look to have a shelter, so if that hadn't worked we'd have headed home - but they gave us two more nights without question :-)

Wednesday was pretty wild!

 

Our tent in the wind - note the new location, tucked up much closer to the shelter and the hill, with the picnic table moved into the shelter itself.

 

We spent most of Thursday in the tent, reading a book together.

 

water everywhere on Thursday morning after the storm had passed

Everything peaceful again on Friday morning

And so warm that Martin even went for a swim!

Then it was back to the Manukau train station via lunch with friends from church who live near there :-)

 

This trip was the first time either of us had been to the Manukau train station and we were really impressed - down the escalators takes you to the train and above is Manukau Institute of Technology.

This trip was definitely a challenge for me on the biking front, with about 37km each way.  Our friends we visited at the end live up a big hill, and I was very much trudging my way by the time we got there, although I could have biked all the way home fine if we'd not gone via their place.

Our new tent, from 3FUL-GEAR, a Chinese brand we weren't previously familiar with, held up really well to some very strong winds and steady (but not super-heavy rain).  The first two nights were really cold (around 5 degrees) and I needed two hot water bottles over the course of the first evening and three on the second to stay warm.  After the rain came it was vastly warmer and I didn't use any more hot water bottles.  We had to boil all our water for three minutes to kill the bugs, but were pleasantly surprised to only go through about 470g of gas over the four nights despite that.  We estimate our carbon footprint for the trip was about 25kg CO2e, which was pleasing - and nearly half on that went on fish and chips on the last day :-)  I had (and have) a bit of a chest infection, and between that and the cold the first couple of days didn't feel that restful - spending most on Wednesday in the tent improved that, though, and I've come home feeling refreshed.