It’s Porter again! On Christmas Eve, we decided to go have a family day out at the beach. Like any sensible man who is asked to find someplace to go for a good family day out, I went to Google Earth and found a place I thought would be cool. Anchor Bay. Just from Google Maps and Google Earth, it looked like it had very clear water, interesting features and plenty of white sandy beach. We were not disappointed at all. This place was great. Just like any normal man, I didn’t print out directions, and we just winged it.
The drive out was one that we had taken many times before, going to Omaha Beach and Goat Island. The town of Matakana was the place where they had the cool public toilets that were big arches. Seen in the picture below.
Public Toilets
The rest of Matakana is pretty cool. The week before we went there after Goat Island and had some food at this place.
Matakana House Cafe and Pub
Here are some other pictures of places in town.
Creamery Sign
Matakana Farmer's Market
Kiwiana
Once we got out of Matakana, we went toward where I thought the beach was going to be. Turning to the left would take us to Omaha Beach, turning to the right, didn’t say anything about Anchor Bay, but something about Tawharanui Regional Park and Reserve. We decided to just wing and it and see where it took us. The next few pictures are from the trip to the reserve.
Vineyard Fields
Vineyard House
Windy Dirt Road
Through the hills to see this!
Once we got through the hills we came upon this house, which was right by the reserve. What was interesting is that the reserve is a kiwi protection area and had predator fences in place to keep out the bad animals that might eat the eggs or kiwi birds themselves. Unfortunately we didn’t see any kiwi, but they are nocturnal usually, so that makes sense.
Old Kiwi House
Reserve entrance
Kiwi sign
Maori Statue
Once we got past the reserve, we headed into a parking area, and much to my surprise, it was Anchor Bay! I have a horrible sense of direction usually, but this time, by complete luck I am sure, we made it. I decided to just have a slideshow of the rest of the pictures, the captions will tell you what you are looking at.
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This was an excellent first summer trip and are looking forward to going to the far north and seeing what is in store for us!!
