Some of you have been asking about Whangarei, the great river town and marina where Learnativity has been moored here in New Zealand since the end of October. So below are some shots that I’ve taken over that time. While it is still much too cold for me after coming to find how much I prefer the tropical climes I’ve been in for the past two years, this has been a great spot for Learnativity for while we wait out the all too long hurricane season up in the South Pacific.
For those of you into sailing and boat building, this is where Steve Dashew chose to have his new FPB 64 boats built.
You can get more details here about the Town Basin Marina where we are have been staying all this time and the owners, Brian and Sharron could not be nicer. Whangarei is one of the marine and boat building centers of the world so there is a great selection of very skilled tradespeople here as well as every kind of part and supplies I’ve ever needed. Learnativity is on what they call a “pole mooring” where there are sets of telephone poles sticking up from the bottom and I tie lines from my bow and stern on each side up to a set of are four of these. There are tires which float around each pole where my lines attach and these all goes up and down with the tide swings, which are quite large here, about 2-3meters. Makes for a very secure and peaceful setup. To get ashore I just row my dingy about 200meters over to the other side of the river to the dinghy dock at the Town Basin Marina office. Works great and other than being much too long away from the open ocean and sailing and hot weather, it has been super place to be.
The people are great, there is a very modern and well stocked grocery store “Pak n Save” just across the street from the marina and very good wine store right beside it. Pretty much everything I’ve needed so far has been within walking distance or a short ride on my bike. There are regular busses that go to Auckland each day and I’ve taken those several times to get to the Auckland airport and to visit friends there. However on the last trip I discovered that when you fly Air New Zealand all inland flights to Auckland are free so this last trip I flew direct from Whangarei to Auckland.
Here on the river it feels like a very small and picturesque town with almost a Disneyland look (in a good way) to it at first as they have fixed up the whole riverside walk beside where I am moored. But as I’ve explored it more and more over the past few months by foot and bicycle I’ve discovered it is quite a large city. Some of the shots below I took while replacing my wind transducer up at the top of the mast so you can get a good view of the river, and others are from the deck and from ashore.
Thats awesome!
Posted by: im-lastminute | May 12, 2010 at 12:11 PM
indeed, There are tires which float around each pole where my lines attach and these all goes up and down with the tide swings, which are quite large here, about 2-3meters. Makes for a very secure and peaceful setup.
Posted by: Nursing apparel | May 25, 2010 at 02:57 PM