Thursday, May 30, 2019

Busby Head Track

We drove to Whangarei Heads for this walk, one of the easiest on offer but still plenty challenging.  Every walk we take here, every single one, feels like a gift.

 To start: grazing cows and a promising vista.

And we turn the corner to...a crisp view of the Marsden Point Oil Refinery. More here. I can smell this place from our campsite in the right wind. Time to get out of here.

A bit farther along are the remains of a gun battery, built to defend the port in 1942, when the Japanese were cruising the Pacific.



 Observation post, disguised by rock

On we go, leaving behind petrol and memories of war.

Excuse us, please.

Looks like paradise to me.

This is an easy 3-km path, though the spur down to Smuggler's Cove adds at least a kilometer and a lot of elevation, cardiac challenging and intense, even with periodic pauses.



 

On the return we meet Danny, a mental health RN from Denver who's here with his wife house-sitting until they figure out where to buy a parcel of land to live on. They started by getting residency in Australia and that got them in here. His RN was a big plus. We must have talked for half an hour to this affable guy.

On the drive home, a cafe beckoned...

Flat whites and a giant choco-banana muffin, y'all


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