Tongaporutu - part 4

This is the last blatantly nostalgic post about Tongaporutu, I promise!

Day two, continued:

 It turned out that our neighbours, the Penningtons, (grandparents, grown son and daughter in law) knew my dad from when they are all members of the Taranaki Jetboat Association - very small world this, and two degrees of separation continues to flourish!

Max and Pauline outside their 3rd Autotrail - it's sheer luxury inside.

Carmen and Darin - they have a Swift caravan.

A change of view for us. When the Penningtons left (work called, shame; and Darin and Carmen's kids had to go back to school) we moved to the spot Max and Pauline's beautiful 8.8m Autotrail Landmark Oakura motorhome had been parked.

A heron on the rocks in front of the end bach

The view upstream to the bridge across SH3, with the leasehold baches on the right. The concrete retaining wall is a reasonably recent addition - good thing it wasn't there when we used to use this area as our starting and stopping place for waterskiing, as there may have been injuries if people came in too sharply and didn't let go of the rope in time ...

Looking across to SH3 after the bridge and the cutting

And heading up the hill and northwards

This stretch of the river, very close to the mouth, was always called Rowles's Bend by us as it was Harold Rowles's favourite fishing spot. It became a firm favourite with our kids as it was a great place to swim, have bonfires with driftwood and build houses/huts with driftwood - they would build them over several days, taking spades and rope and anything they could find at the bach that could be called in to service ... They would either transport things by dinghy or by road and then carry them down the steep track from the paddocks above. At one point a few years ago, there was someone permanently camped down on that beach, living off grid bigtime.

Sunset, at low tide, looking out past the river mouth to Australia ...

Day3:

We left in the morning heading for breakfast at a cafe in Mokau. But I had to stop for David to take these photos back across the river to where we had been.

The channel of the river changes regularly, and twice a day the high tides cover almost all of that expanse of sand and mud.

Our campsite in front of the trees directly across the river.

 OK, that is the last of Tongaporutu for a while. Phew, thank heavens for that! I hear you all saying ...