Sunday 9 January Mansion House Bay, Kawau Island

Mansion House Bay

On Saturday we sailed from Gt Barrier island back towards the northern part of the Hauraki Gulf and into Mansion House Bay on the western side of Kawau Island, a small to medium sized piece of land. It's noted for two well known habitants, an eccentric NZ Governor for Queen Victoria and John and Lynne Pardey who have written many books about the cruising lifestyle. Governor Grey of the Empire extended the house belonging to the defunct copper mine manager into a grand residence and added a menagerie of animals collected on his travels such wallabies & kookaburras from Australia, peacocks and tigers from India (he wanted to bring tigers too to hunt), zebra from Africa to pull his trap. It's now a DOC (conservation) site with extensive gardens. It all makes for a very pretty, and popular, place to drop the anchor.

View of the bay from the house

There were over 20 boats jammed in and if the wind had blown we would all have lain the same way except the wind dropped and we gently drifted around our chains and into each other. In this way we met a group from Auckland on an ex-racer and went over for coffee and a delightful young family who we may see in Fiji in May when the husband takes part in a race from here to there. NZ really are very friendly people and interested to hear more about our adventures and what it's like to cruise long term.

Ashore we met another delightful couple, twenty somethings English, Amy and Andrew who are taking time out to travel around the world and are working for the summer as guides at the house. They came out to Jackster for sundowners and we had a very pleasant evening talking travelling and diving.