Days 6–7: Woolleys Bay & Matapouri Bay
Our first beach-side camping spot and our first spot of bad weather
After a busy day exploring Whangarei, we drove on up to Woolleys Bay. There’s a small area for camping right near the beach, and we made this our base for the night.
The day was still young when we arrived, so we spent the afternoon on the beach.
Despite the fact that both the beach and the weather were amazing, it was actually really quiet. There were quite a few groups of people scattered around, but the beach was big enough to make you feel like you had the place to yourself.
That evening, we went for a romantic sunset stroll along the sand which ended up in us making terrible sand drawings and jumping up and down in the soft sand. The phrase easily amused comes to mind.
I also managed to use our solar shower for the first time! I left it a bit late for the water to heat up properly, but it worked well enough.
We did have a relaxing beach day planned for the following day, but the weather had other plans. We woke up in the night to what sounded like someone pouring gravel onto the roof of our camper, but I guess it seems more plausible to assume it was just heavy rain. It was so loud that we had to shout in order to explain to each other just how loud it was.
“It’s so loud that we have to shout to hear each other!”
The showers and strong winds continued into the next day, so most of what we had planned didn’t happen. Instead of the beach, we ended up staying in the van and catching up blogs, travel plans, and Netflix.
We did still make it to our planned afternoon activity, although it wasn’t quite what we had had in mind. A short drive from Woolleys Bay takes you to Matapouri Bay; home to the Mermaid Pools. You can only access them at low tide as they form when seawater gets trapped in the rocks as the tide drops.
Usually, you would aim to visit them on a sunny, windless day when the pools would be an inviting cerulean blue. Unfortunately, we ended up seeing them like this…
Maybe you’re thinking that they still look kind of inviting — or maybe not — but the strong winds and crashing waves that the photo didn’t capture were definitely a deal breaker.
Although we didn’t get to have the idyllic swim that we wanted, it was still cool (ish?) to see the waves crashing over the sides. The beach itself and the reasonably treacherous track to get from the beach to the pools also made the whole ordeal a bit more interesting.
