Category Archives: Daily Lime

Town Basin Marina Whangarei

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Town Basin Marina is conveniently located in the heart of Whangarei.  There are shops, restaurants, marine stores, markets, bakeries, and all sorts of places to spend your money all within walking distance.  And it is just so beautiful at night with all the lights twinkling and reflecting in the water.

We had massive rains and floods during our stay.  Locals said they had not seen it rain like this in over a dozen years.  Unfortunately, with the heavy rains, comes the debris, broken trees, branches, trash, and muck down the river.

Lucky for us, the marina returned to its normal beauty within a few days.

The tide is between 2-3 meters at the Town Basin Marina making the ramps fun to walk on.  Notice the difference between the gazebo and Sugar Shack and the angle of the ramp.

Claphams National Clock Museum

Just pas the marina office is Claphams National Clock Museum which includes one of the world’s largest sun dials and a working ball clock!

Not sure I ever figured out how to tell time using the sun dial, but it sure is a work of art in the center of Town Basin, Whangarei.

The Whangarei Ball Clock

Is it a kinetic sculpture? Or is it a cultural attraction? Is it a clock? It is all these and much more. The Rolling Ball clock is now in place in its prime location adjacent to the museum. The time is indicated by balls that roll onto timing racks with markings for hours, minutes and seconds. There is always something to marvel at anytime during the day!

Inside the museum is a rare collection of unique and funny clocks.  As you enter the museum, you are greeted with everyday household items and musical instrument clocks converted into clocks.

Telling time using the balls

The Town Basin Time Ball 

Many small and unique clocks that surprise and delight the eyes.

Great old grandfather, grandmother, and grand daughter clocks line many walls inside the museum.

Do you have any interest in a clock museum?  Normally, I would say, well….not really.  However, I found it rather interesting to learn about the evolution of the clocks.  And it was great fun to see the variety of crazy clocks this man collected.

Glass Artistry

One of the many stores boasts of beautiful, colorful hand blown glass work.  I marvel at the beautiful colors, shapes and designs.  This store was unique in that it allowed you to view the hand blown glass technique first hand.

Hundertwasser Art Center

Hundertwasser Art Center is a marvel in its mere presence in the marina!  We always know how to get back to the boat, just by looking for the big gold icon!

This museum is dedicated to Wairau Maori Art.  The museum also honors and promotes the legacy of visionary, painter, ecologist, and architect, Friedensreich Hundertwasser.  It was great fun wandering around the grounds and facilities

Car Show

One Sunday, Matt and I stumbled on a small car show in a parking lot.  They had a really nice variety of collectable cars!

Gypsy Fair

A caravan of gypsies came to Whangarei offering treats, games, and artisan pieces.

The Canopy Bridge

the Canopy bridge lies at one end of the marina.  The sails, masts, and spares of the boats at Town Basin Marina inspired the look and feel of the bridge.  At night the Canopy Bridge lights up in vibrant colors in a beautiful art show.  The Whangarei community comes together periodically for festivals, art shows, and markets held at the Canopy Bridge.

Te Matau a Pohe 

Matt and I had the opportunity to walk across the Te Matau a Pohe (fish hook) bridge several times as we cross from one side of town to the other.

The hook bridge is simply beautiful whether you walk on it or sail below it.  And this beautiful star tree just takes my breath away.

Artwork All Around Whangarei

Many beautiful tikis are scattered around the parks of the city.

I loved this piece…

So many beautiful sculptures and artwork around Whangarei.

This is one of my favorite pieces.  The Camera Obscura is a huge structure that winds you inside into a dark center where the light (lower left corner) reflects everything it sees from the outside inside, but upside down.

And this young lady just seemed to speak to me

One of our tasty meals at The Butter Factory

Town Basin Marina at Whangarei is a cultural hot bed and shopping Mecca all at our fingertips.  A quick hop, skip, and a jump from our slip at the marina.

Events from this blog occurred in early November.  Our blog posts run 6-8 weeks behind actual events.  In our last blog, we are welcomed into the country of New Zealand.

Yalobi Waterfalls in Waya

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We ended up leaving the rugby tournament early because a strong weather system was forecasted to come through and cause all sorts of problems for us.  So, we left after the first set, 16 games in 11-minute increments.  Our new destination is a small bay called Yalobi off the southern tip of Waya Island.

We pointed as high as we could to head North towards Waya.  We managed to sail the first 10nm.  But  we just couldn’t make it so we had to turn the engines on for the last 7nm.  Straight into the wind and waves.  Thank goodness it was only a short distance as it was not comfortable.  We got rained on several times in addition to the wind and seas on the nose.

We arrived in Yalobi Bay on Waya Island to a beautiful double rainbow, but it was only out for a short while before the wind and rain came for 18 hours straight.

The good news is that the rain has brought out the lush green hillside and created several cascading waterfalls.

When we arrived, there were 3 other boats in the anchorage.  By sunset, another 4 boats arrived to hunker down and wait out the storm.

Sun Comes a Shining

Finally, the sun comes out and we are able to go ashore to do our sevusevu and walk around the village of Yalobi.  We meet the chief and several locals who are more than happy to show us around their village with 58 families, a small infirmary, and a school.

There are lots of fabulous homes scattered in between the concrete houses.

We came across a monument which honors the many Fijians that died during the massive Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918.  Fiji lost 14% of their population in a matter of months due to the pandemic.

We strolled along the long, beautiful, beach.

And we discovered lots of cascading waterfalls that filled the streams, water tanks and livelihood of the village.

The Yalobi hillsides and village come alive after the rain storm – so green and healthy!  There was one rather large 50meter yacht that had a helicopter fly off and into the sunset.

We also found this adorable puppy that I so wanted to stuff in my backpack!

The events from this blog occurred in early September 2022.  Our blog posts run 6-8 weeks behind actual events.  We experience our first Fijian Rugby game in Yanuya – did you read about it on our last blog?

Fijian Rugby

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The Fiji rugby team has been a major force in the 2022 world rugby tournament.  It is a serious sport here in Fiji and is played on most of the islands.  We were lucky enough to be able to attend a tournament in the Mamanucas!

They started at 0700 on a Thursday morning as they had to get through 32 teams playing 11-minute games.  Each team does a prayer before each game.  One team recently lost their chief, so before their game, the entire stadium had a moment of silence. (top photo).

While 2 teams are playing on the field, the other teams are warming up on the side lines.

The teams do this fabulous thing that I call “hike the player up” when the ball goes out of bounds.  Each team raises one team member as high as they can go and those team members try to catch the ball that is thrown to them from offsides.  

To restart the game, they scrum, where both teams of 7 huddle together in a circle and one guy tosses the ball in the center.

I will tell you that these players are real men!  No falling down and pretending to be hurt (like in US basketball or soccer).  They take a hit and pop back up!  And I mean they really take a hit!  We heard them pound the ground and saw the dirt shoot up.  No pads or helmets!

Good or bad, I have no idea

A lot of “oops” moments where they just couldn’t hold on to the ball as they were pummeled to the ground.

But there were a lot of great moments and fast runners in this rugby tournament.

Most of the time, they held onto that funny football with all their might!

Almost every match had a score or more.

We were wondering what they used to mark the field and wouldn’t you know it, they use used motor oil!

The rugby players might have only played for 11 minutes, but they played harder than any other sport I’ve seen!  And it is no surprise that they played so passionately as the first-place team won $3000FJ, 2nd place won $1000FJ and the teams that lost in the semi finals each were awarded $300FJ (the entry fee).

We made lots of friends on the side lines.

After the game, we headed to their artisan market that they opened specially for us.  They had 6 rows of tables filled with local Fijian crafts.

RULES OF FIJIAN RUGY

  • No shoulder pads or helmets
  • The ball must be pitched backwards to your teammates. No forward passes
  • A team can pitch the ball back and forth to each other as many times as they like
  • There is no blocking to assist your runner
  • Everyone runs with the ball and tackles equally.
  • When you are tackled, you have 1 second to let go of the ball and purposely “fumble” the ball.  Don’t touch it again until you are up from the pile and standing on your feet.
  • When you tackle someone, you cannot touch the ball until you are on your feet.  You cannot dive on a loose ball.
  • Typically, there are 15 plays from each team, but in Fiji there are only 7 from each side.
  • When your teammate pitches the ball to you as you are running down the field, and you drop it, that is a penalty (called “knock down”)

The events from this blog occurred in early October 2022.  Our blog posts run 6-8 weeks behind actual events.  Wilson is back on Cast Away Island – did you read about it on our last blog?