Ahhhh, New Zealand. Good people, good food, beautiful scenery and amazing sites. It’s good to be back and reconnect with friends we made last year. Although we won’t be in the states for the holidays, we will be spending Christmas and New Years with many of our cruising family members and a New Year’s party hosted on Kalea in the downtown Auckland (Viaduct Marina).
Today’s post is about the hike and anchorage across the bay from Auckland. It’s a rather large set of islands called Rangitoto and Motutapu. In the 1920s locals would sail and row themselves across the bay to these beautiful islands and build little holiday homes/structures that they called Baches. About 140 structures. This island was government owned but it didn’t deter people from carving out a piece of the island and calling at their own. The government gave the tenets leases and used the residents to build walkways and roads around the island. They were modest cabins by any stretch, but these people put a lot of time into getting materials across the bay and moved lots of lava stone to create foundations and boat ramps.
In 1937 conservationists convinced the government that the Baches were detrimental to the efforts to conserve the island and the courts agreed. The courts gave the residents 20 years to remove themselves and everything associated with their structures. A smart attorney continued to haunt the conservationists and finally in 1957 got the New Zealand Supreme Court to agree that the Baches were part of the environment that should be protected and kept preserved as long as the family has survivors. After the 20 years of required eviction, only 30 Baches were left and to this day many have been handed down in families and still are in use.
As we walked around, it was fun to see the ruins as well as some of the Baches still occupied by some of the original families.
As for us, we have decided not to sail to Australia, so will fly there for a few weeks. We want more time in the tropics before we move onto Indonesia. As always……plans are ever changing to adapt to our whimsical lives. 🙂
Our World Adventure 
Thank you for reminding us there are places on our Planet that are calm and clear and quiet and lovely. We have them too here in sunny California, but all mixed in with zillions of cars and such. Keep snappin’ those photos! Keep nappin’, too!! Ahhhhh…….
YKW
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Delighted to hear from you two! Interesting little trip to the islands across from Auckland. So you’ll FLY to Australia instead of sail. Well, I won’t report you to the Sailing Bureau this time – but I don’t want to hear about any more desserting of the seas. Really looking forward to your reports from Indonesia after the weather calms down.
Andrew invited himself over for dinner today, so the three of us will visit starting at 3:00. Shanna and we just Zoomed. She and the two kids are coming up for a week starting on Dec. 26. (They were just here with Peter over Thanks giving week.) And on the same day (Dec. 26) we’ll be with Kristin & Alden & Pierce in S.F. Ain’t family great!
Lou & Joan
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