A few weeks ago, I got itchy feet. I was sick of being “stuck” in Auckland. Whether by my own psychological perspective or by the somewhat-expensive flight prices, I felt unable to leave and yet I knew I needed to.

So I cracked. I compromised. I went to Whangārei.

Currently the government is supporting a 50% reduction on all forms of public transport within NZ, which is brilliant considering that international travel is alarmingly expensive at the moment. Remembering this helped me to find the motivation I needed to get out of town and get a fresh perspective.

I left early Thursday morning. I caught the Auckland to Whangārei intercity (https://www.intercity.co.nz/ ) bus, which left Auckland (outside Skycity) at 7:30am and was due to arrive in the town basin of Whangārei at 10:19am. This bus journey (one-way) cost me $26. It was a lovely ride up north of Auckland. I had a great view from the top level of the double decker bus which was decked out in comfortable leather seats that were able to turn into beds at a moment’s notice, but roadworks made the going slow and there was the usual bottleneck near Warkworth. This meant that we ended up arriving around 10:45am, about 25 mins after we were due to be there. Needless to say, I was grateful that I’d delegated an 11am online task to someone else.

The bus pulled into its spot, just outside and down from the Hundertwasser Art Gallery and outside the Whangārei art museum and I got out and went to meet my aunt who was kind enough to let me stay at her place for the night. 🙂 Firstly we walked the sculpture trail alongside the town basin. It’s a short ~20 min round-trip track that winds beside some beautiful sculptures of various mediums. I highly recommend checking it out. It is a boardwalk in places, with anti-slip surfacing, and standardd grey pavement concrete in other places.

Then we grabbed brunch @ Mokaba cafe (https://www.mokabacafe.co.nz/). It has recently been renovated and refurbished and is a beautiful, huge inviting venue with plenty of indoor and outdoor space for you to enjoy your fare. To my eyes it held similar food to those items at the Plant Barn cafes, at a similar price point. I had a salmon bagel which was ~$13 and a mochacchino with soy milk, which was around $5.50.

After this we went back to her house, and I did some online work for a couple of hours until 2:30pm and enjoyed a quiet indoor afternoon.

Later in the afternoon, around 4:30pm, my aunt and I went out again and she introduced me to a beautiful local walking trail up in the hills behind the houses. Our route took us up the side of Mt Parihaka, alongside a beautiful stream and along a track canopied by tall native trees. Some of the track was earth, and the steeper sections were (fairly-new) wooden steps. After such an exciting/productive day I got up a few of these fights of steps before my energy ran low and we returned along the same path to the car (4:30pm- 5:30pm). Not satisfied that I had had a good enough view of Whangārei, we then drove up to the top of Mt Parihaka to see a beautiful war memorial obelisk and a stunning viewing platform, from which you can enjoy a panoramic view of the entire Whangārei area and harbour (5:30-6pm).

After this we returned home for a delicious and simple dinner of steak+ vege stirfry with rice before I continued work for another hour from 7pm – 8pm.

The day was rounded off by a decent piece of crosswording on my part and a good stint of Netflixing on the part of my aunt. I slept like a baby after such wonderful walks and a fairly eventful day.

Day #2: Friday 28th October

Waking early, We both enjoyed a machine-made espresso coffee and some porridge before setting out on another walk around 8am. We drove to the Whangārei falls and parked there before beginning the Hātea river walk (the full length of which goes all the way into town and to the town basin). It was a delightful walk and we met many other walkers, dogs and animals along the way.

It winds its way alongside the Hātea river, crossing the river a couple of times, once by way of a swing bridge, and the scenery changes as you walk. Initially the area around the path is fairly open and flat, with the river on one side and redwood trees 5-10 metres away on the other side, but later on you find yourself once more among nature, in the bush and then climbing a hill. We looped back after the track connected with Whareora Road, having no desire to compete with cars for physical and sensory space.

Having started the walk around 8:15, we finished it around 10:15 and my aunt kindly dropped me off at Hunderwasser museum where I spent the rest of the morning.

Friedrich Stowasser, better known by his pseudonym Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser, was an Austrian visual artist and architect who also worked in the field of environmental protection. Born in 1928, he and his mother escaped Nazi persecution by posing as Christians, though they were in fact Jewish. Hunderwasser later moved to NZ in the 1970s, bought multiple properties in the Bay of Islands (in Kaurinui) and realised his dream of living amongst nature while continuing to do art and architecture.

One of his main artistic mainstays is the rejection of straight lines and the entire art museum was designed in this way with curved walls, a non-flat floor and a spiral staircase too.

Alongside this comes his powerful passion for nature and supporting it while also living amongst it. He was a strong advocate for composting toilets and using public transport, wanting to make an little an effect on the environment as possible. He also made sure to incorporate a living roof into his buildings whereby there was an entire garden, an ecosystem, on the roof of the building.

Seeing his life and his works laid out before me was nothing less than astounding. When someone uses creative ideas and talents to bring to life their dream and to display their desire to take care of nature, I will always be in awe of them. I felt very inspired to continue with my own dreams, this blog being one of them, in the hope it can grow into something much bigger than myself and before something more than it was before.

Thank you for reading.