Tag Archives: whangarei

Limestone Island & Quarry

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Limestone Island sits in the middle of the Whangarei river.  Cruisers, container ships, cargo ships, and day sailors continually pass by this once bustling limestone quarry.  The island made primarily of limestone has had a diverse history.  From a war zone to cement factory to nature preserve.  After passing her over a dozen times we decide to stop and explore her history.

In the early 1800’s several Maori tribes fought over possession of the island.  In the mid 1800’s the island was leased from the Maori and Lime works was established.  Then, in 1881 the first batch of Portland Cement was produced in New Zealand (and probably the Southern Hemisphere).  In the early 1900’s, Lime Works employed 270 people until 1918 when most of the equipment and buildings were moved to the main land.  Limestone Island was still quarried for limestone for a number of years.  

In 1965, the Aero Club was allowed to graze cattle on the island.  In 1989, the island was gifted to Whangarei District Council.  This was also when the start of conservation and ecological restoration began.  In 1996, the first rangers cottage was built. Since then, the island has since had over 23,000 trees planted and its become a haven for kiwis, birds, and lizards.

Limestone Island Today

There has been a lot of work to restore native vegetation, stabilize historic structures and provide beautiful walking trails and signage for visitors. The visitor center has two towering tikis with beautiful carving and sea shell eyeballs at its entrance.

Sugar Shack anchored in Shipwreck Bay which was a little disconcerting but a beautiful spot none the less.

In 1968, a very famous pirate radio ship called Tiri ran aground in Whangaparapara. It lost engine power and was then swept onto the rocks.  Later it was laid to rest on the shores of Limestone Island along side another shipwreck.

Today you find towering stacks standing proud, furnaces, kilns, and lots of ruins of what was once a majestic cement factory.

You can walk through the ruins, inside the kilns and around the entire factory which is just a small reminder of what it once was.

We climbed to the top of a hill that overlooked the ruins and you can see Sugar Shack in the anchorage.

The single men’s residence, built in 1874, was just a long building with small, dorm like spaces.  The caretaker’s residence, built in the mid 1800’s, was beautiful and had a fireplace in every room! 

This was once a busy port, but now the enormous dock is in ruins with gaping holes in the structure.

Around the end of the island we found this old, metal conveyor belt that we assumed transported the gravel or cement from land to the ships.  Lower photo is a great example of the beautiful limestone that stands proud on the island to this day.

Inhabitants

The only inhabitants are the caretakers, a dozen sheep, and 2 dozen kiwis.  The island has proven to be a tremendous breeding ground for kiwis.  With the removal of stoats and rats, the kiwi eggs and baby chicks thrive.  Once the kiwis reach 1200g they are returned to the mainland.

The Cement Factory in its Prime

I love the diagram which walks you through the life of the limestone.

There is a lovely walking trail that takes you around the entire island during low tide.  It takes about an hour to walk the trail around the edge of the island.  There are several other trails that lead you across the island and around the ruins as well (see map at the top of the post).  The limestone on the trail and the shells were super pretty.

We enjoyed several days at this anchorage where we were able to fully explore this lovely little Limestone Island.

Our blog posts run several weeks behind actual live events.  This blog post occurred around mid-May 2024.  Don’t miss out on our last blog post where we  wander around a beautiful bird sanctuary at Tiritiri.

Mount Manaia – A Stairway to Heaven

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We pull off the Town Basin Marina dock with our friends on Q2 (Lewis, Sara and baby Skye) following us to a new anchorage, Urquharts Bay.  A beautiful, wide bay with lots of moorings and local boats.  This anchorage gave us access to many hikes and is located at the mouth of the Whangarei river. Despite how busy it was we secured a place all by ourselves.

Mount Manaia

Mount Manaia, Mt. Lion, Bream Head, and the Hen and Chickens, are scattered remnants of andesite, volcanic intusions that erupted 16-22 million years ago.  They are part of a 50km 2 (19 sq mi) stratovolcano that extended to the Hen and Chickens.

This is a sacred place for the Maori.  In former times, Maori placed the remains of their important chiefs on the tops of these rocks.  It is believed that the craggy peaks represent an important chief’s family who were turned to stone in a dispute over the infidelity of his wife.

The left arrow shows how high I went and the right arrow shows how high Matt, Rich and Michelle got (they rock climbed the last 20′).

Mt. Manaia is blanketed by native bush and has jagged peaks that jet up into the sky.  The entire area is a protected reserve which has a very well maintained track to the summit.

A Little Bit of Crazy

Our friends on Pogeyan (Rich and Michelle) invited us to go on this crazy steep hike up Mount Manaia.  We dragged Q2 along with us (even 3 month old baby Skye came along).  Matt and I had not been hiking in almost a year and I was a wee bit nervous to say the least.   Rich said it was a short hike (a little over an hour to the top), but it is straight up – a total vertical incline with over 800 steps peppered in to help you get up the super steep parts.  Yikes!

As we begin our journey our little pack slowly starts to split up.  Matt takes off, in flip flops no less, and leads the way, the other two guys are behind him for most of the trail.  Us ladies take it at a “more leisurely pace” and rest periodically as I am totally out of shape!

They installed really nice stairs over the super steep parts of the trail.  Every 100 steps there is a small mark, but I don’t believe it so I count myself.  I was spot on up to 600 steps but then things got wonky and I ended up wit 1226 stairs to the summit whereas the markers had 1136 steps.  Hmmm.  I had 2 other witnesses so I am going with my number of 1226 – which is a lot of stairs!

The Summit

After an hour we reach the platform and hope to find Matt.  And wouldn’t you know he found a crevice to hang out in….can you see him in the far left photo or the top right photo?

Michelle and I at the platform summit – I’m so happy to be sitting down.

The unbelievable views….

I’m guessing these are the children in the fable….

The Pinnacle on the Summit

We continue on around the corner from the platform summit.  Rich says we are not at the top yet.  So, we carry on and do a few rock scrambles.  At this point my legs are burning.  I made it to the 2nd highest point but couldn’t carry on so Matt, Michelle, and Rich did the last 20′.

The views were spectacular.  I wish I had the power to go up the last section but I had to save my reserves for the climb down.

We saw lots of beautiful Kauri trees and this beautiful stone archway.

At the end of the day we hiked up 1226 stairs or 104 floors, 4.1 miles and 9,759 steps.  The numbers don’t seem so impressive when you break it down. But it was a hard earned workout!

Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind actual live events.  This blog post occurred in late January.  Did you read about our new set of wheels in our last blog post?

A Sticky Situation: Vinyl

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Last season we decided to change the color scheme of our boat from blue with red accents to gray.  A more modern and sleek color.  We converted a few things with the purchase of new canvas (sail bag, cockpit enclosure, dinghy chaps, cushions), and sails but we had to tackle the vinyl stickers.  We have loads of stickers on the boat.  Our “Sugar Shack” logo is on each bow and the port stern, our home port is on the starboard stern, Catana has 3 logos and we have 3 stripes that run along the 47′ of both the inside and outside of each hull.

It all had to come off!  We hired Vital Signs to recreate our new graphics.  Wayne came to visit us immediately after we were hauled out.  He showed us how to properly remove the stickers and adhesive.  Of course he made it look easy with the right tools.

Then Matt and I jump into the process.  It is a very painstaking process that requires tons of patience (which I have none), finger nails (gone), and proper tools (nope don’t have these either).  The first photo shows several of the vinyl stickers (Sugar Shack, red line, blue line, world, and boot strap blue line).  I use a small exacto knife blade to get under the 23 year old baked on stickers.

We use every method at our disposal, climbing ladders and platforms, hanging upside down, and sitting cross ways.

It was so sad to depersonalize our boat…

Then Came the Hard Part

As if getting the actual old vinyl stickers off the boat wasn’t difficult enough you had to go back and remove every spec of the adhesive!

This tested every bit of patience in my body!

The top photo shows the left over adhesive after the sticker stripe was removed.   But even if you cannot feel the adhesive on the boat it still remains!  Check out the bottom photo where you can barely see a light discoloration indicating residue.

Patience, loads of turpentine, lots of exacto blades later proved more successful.

After 5 days of scraping, moaning, and complaining, the boat is ready to be “cut” (or washed with an abrasive product) which will prepare the hull for polish and will remove any remaining adhesive.

The Design

We decided to make some changes to our vinyl graphics.  Instead of a small red stripe above the windows and a large blue stripe at the window line we are going to replace them both with just one larger gray stripe.  Instead of a large blue stripe and a small red one at the waterline we will replace them with one large gray stripe.  We will then replace the small “Catana World” logo with a logo Matt designed.

Because we have “Sugar Shack” on the stack pack (sail bag) and we have it on the stern we decided we did not need a huge logo at the top of the bows.  So, we incorporated it into the world which now represents more of the Pacific and the areas where we have sailed.

We head to Wayne’s office where he shows us a mock up of our design.  Now…you have to use your creative “eyes” as he takes an old photo with the old vinyl and overlays the new.  You can tell this is an old photo (maybe 3-4 years) as the bottom paint is red and the sail bag is blue.  Now our sailbag is gray and the bottom paint is black.

The Application

Wayne returns for 1.5 days to adhere all of our graphics.  We decided on 3m slate gray to match our canvas.  He is meticulous, effecient, and proficient.  I am shocked at how fast he is able to adhere all the stripes around everything.  

We especially love the black hole at the bow 🙂  The world is made up of 3 stickers.  The background, gray, then the white letters, then the black outlines around the letters. But the hole as is was pretty fun to see.

This is a fun photo which shows you the new stickers, the removal, and the old stickers on the back of each sugar scoop.

The before and after photos are remarkable. It immediately lifts our spirits to see our name back on our home.

We are so pleased with Wayne’s work.  We would highly recommend Vital Signs for all of your graphic needs.  They did an excellent job for a very reasonable price.  They are located in Whangarei, New Zealand.

Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind actual live events.  This blog post happened during the month of November.  We enjoy some Kiwi fun at a cabaret in our last blog post!