Great Barrier Island

Scream spent two nervous weeks in the wonderful sheltered harbours of Great Barrier, or Aotea, Island.

Port Fitzroy is a magnificent harbour.  It has two narrow and protected enterances, leading to a large harbour.  Port Fitzroy harbour is almost four miles north to south with an average width of almost half a mile.  There are five bays.

The shop in Port Fitzroy has basics, like bread, eggs, and milk, and on the days when the ferry arrives, a good selection of produce.  Currently the ferry arrives Tuesdays and Fridays.  On these days the burger hut remains open from lunch to dinner, on other days it is lunch only.

We went on the hike to the Kauri dams, which was quite challenging and just not worth the effort.

We enjoyed wood-fired baths at Smokehouse bay, which I highly recommend.

Unfortunately, it has been blowing hard most of the time that we have been here. Honestly, it is the windiest weather that I can recall. We've had two days with gusts to storm force, another six days of gale force winds, and only one day in fifteen with less than 25 knots forecast.

Telecom's cell service, which has been flawless everywhere else that we have been, has been unreliable here.  The behaviour is not like holes in coverage, it is more like the towers are going off and on randomly. Vodaphone's network has always been available, so we have "emergency only" service all the time and telecom maybe 1/3 of the time.  This is rather frustrating. In Tryphena we had no service from any provider, despite being anchored only 50 meters from town and a telephone booth.