The day finally arrived to cross Kaiapara Harbor, leaving the Northland back to Auckland, where we started 8 days previously. Due to the tides, we were scheduled to be picked up on the beach at 7AM and so we woke at 5AM to break camp and pack. The sunrise was amazing.
All of us were ready ahead of time, and the captain of the boat texted Sonja at 6:30 that they were ready for us. In fact, they had arrived an hour earlier. We headed to the beach.
The dock at Pouto Point is under construction, so we had to be picked up from the beach using a small skiff that ferried half the bikes and then half the passengers and gear at a time. It all went smoothly! We took off just after 7AM, heading to Helensville or Parakai, depending on the height of the tides by the time we arrived. The tides are 12-14 feet in the harbor, so they greatly affect water navigation.
The voyage took about 3 hours. Our path was slightly different than the below map, due the captain taking advantage of the tidal flows to speed the boat along the way. We passed some large sand barges along the way, which were moving slowly to arrive at their port with maximum tide due to their size and weight.
Not surprisingly, Morris asked to steer the boat and he did a pretty good job under the careful supervision of the captain, who took over as we started navigating the river inlet to our dock, which ended up being Parakai since it has a floating dock and the dock at Helensville is only really accessible on high tide for our boat.
We arrived at Parakai at 10AM and decided to go on to Auckland, 32 miles away, instead of staying the night in Helensville.
The first part of the ride was not so nice, on moderately trafficked roads with some tarry gravel that stuck to our tires, followed by a nice bike path coming into Auckland. It felt sort of odd to return to Auckland, but it was super-nice to sleep in an actual bed and take a rest day the following day, getting some errands done while in the big city.
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