15.02 Paihia: The Bay of Islands & The Photo Not Taken

2.A Ti Beach, Paihia,  Seen from State Highway 11

Recently Jean and I met a couple from Canada now living in  Napier. Ed, the husband, remarked that in six hours in the USA you might be able to cross two states. In New Zealand, on the other hand, he said in six hours you'd get to the next town. The remark was an exaggeration but an exaggeration of a deeper truth: in New Zealand cross-country road driving is almost invariably arduous. And with this truth in mind and aside from our recent auto journey to Taumarunui et al (See Post 14.08), Jean and I had resolved that trips around New Zealand during our 2014-2015 stay would be by public transportation. 

Getting around New Zealand by public transport is easy. Air New Zealand has an extensive network, Jetstar a more limited one. On the ground InterCity has an extensive, excellent bus network, Naked Bus a more limited but thrifty one. And then there are a few remaining intercity passenger rail services: on the North Island between Auckland and Wellington (See Post 13.23) and on the South Island between Picton (Wellington) and Christchurch and between Christchurch and Greymouth.

Last Friday we caught an Air New Zealand flight to Auckland, then took a Northliner bus (in the InterCity network) from Auckland to Paihia, where we stayed for three nights. Paihia is a vacation town on the Bay of Islands, whose 144 islands prompted Capt. James Cook to so name it. Its clear waters, beautiful shorelines, and its game fishing opportunities—made famous by the American author Zane Grey—draw visitors throughout the year. Paihia served as the anchorage for several excursions, including a bus tour to Cape Reinga (to be covered in my next post), a boat tour to the Hole in the Rock and the town of Russell, and a walking excursion to the Waitangi Treaty Grounds. 

We walked to the grounds shortly after arriving in Paihia. The Treaty of Waitangi, signed on 6 February 1840 between representatives of the British Crown and chiefs of numerous Māori iwi (or tribes), serves as the basis of New Zealand's polity to this very day. As I discussed in my Blogpost 13.04, the Treaty of Waitangi amounts to a 'declaration of interdependence', if you will, between the Māori and the Pākehā (non-Māori) people who populate New Zealand. It is inconceivable that any first-time visitor to the Bay of Islands region would not visit the Waitangi Treaty Grounds (now administered by a trust). The grounds, as they say, mark the birthplace of a nation.

2.B Waitangi Flagpole with Flags of New Zealand, United Kingdom, and United Tribes

2.C View from the Waitangi Treaty Grounds

2.D The Treaty House, Waitangi Treaty Grounds

2.E Front of Te Whare Runanga (Assembly House) at Waitangi Treaty Grounds

2.F Interior of Te Whare Runanga

2.G Entrance Detail, Te Whare Runanga

2.H Boats near the Waitangi Wharf

2.I Waka (War Canoe) HMS Ngātokimatawhaorua

2.J Stump of the Kauri Tree from Which HMS Ngātokimatawhaorua Was Carved

An interpretative center straddles the entrance to the Waitangi Treaty Grounds but the 'must sees' are the Treaty House, Te Whare Runanga (erected in 1940), and the waka (or war canoe) HMS Ngātokimatawhaorua, which Queen Elizabeth II visited and upon which she conferred Royal Navy status during a 1974 visit, hence HMS.

2.K Dolphins at the Paihia Visitors Information Centre

Our visit to the Bay of Islands included a water outing in a Hole in the Rock Dolphin Cruise conducted by Fullers Great Sights (part of the InterCity Group of companies). Cruises to the Hole in the Rock are also provided by Viator and by the Explore Group. Here are some photos taken on the journey to the Hole in the Rock and nearby Cape Brett.

2.L Wake Kicked up by Fullers Tour Boat

2.M Rocky Shore in the Bay of Islands

2.N Hole in the Rock on Motukokako (Piercy Island)

2.O Upon Exiting the Hole in the Rock

2.P Cape Brett Lighthouse

Following the tour boat's passage through the Hole in the Rock, we tourists were taken to Otehei Bay on Urupukapuka Island, the island where Zane Grey would stay on his visits to the Bay of Islands. The island is now Crown property and, hence, it has a public beach and public trails. After the Fullers tour boat landed at Otehei Bay, about half those on board availed themselves of the beach and the other half chose to avail themselves of tracks and trails leading to nearby overlooks.

2.Q Otehei Bay on Urupukapuka Island

2.R White Sand Beach at Otehei Bay

2.S At the Beach on Otehei Bay

2.T Flora and Sky along a Walking Track on Urupukapuka Island

2.U View from an Urupukapuka Hilltop across Te Rawhiti Inlet, Bay of Islands

After about an hour's visit at Otehei Bay, the Fullers tour boat headed to Russell, the town about 25 minutes across the waters from Paihia. Russell was the first European settlement in what became New Zealand. It's home of the oldest church in New Zealand, Christ Church. Readers of this blog will recall that Te Awamutu, where Jean and I lived in 2013, is said to have the second oldest church in New Zealand (See Blogpost 13.05). Russell is a charming village very much dependent on tourists. Tourists on the Fullers tour boat were afforded the option of disembarking at Russell and returning via a Fullers ferry boat at a later time of their choosing. Many exercised that option. We did. Russell is worth the visit for anyone touring the Bay of Islands region.

2.V Sailing Boat in Kororāreka Bay, Russell

2.W In Russell Another Large New Zealand Tree

2.X The Strand, Russell

2.Y Christ Church Grounds, Russell

2.Z Christ Church Interior

On the ferry ride back to Paihia our boat encountered a pod of porpoises (perhaps a half dozen). In my Navy years I'd occasionally seen porpoises riding the bow waves, but I'd never had an up-close and personal experience like the one we travelers encountered on the return to Paihia. The pod chose for several minutes to frolic in the wake of the ferry, seemingly leaping with more vigor and joy as more people came astern to watch the spectacle. I was so swept up in this joyous occasion that I neglected to take a photo. Perhaps no photo could capture the thrill of that moment. But perhaps, too, the free and frolicking porpoises are another reason to come back to the Bay of Islands. It's a beautiful spot of New Zealand in any event. 

Warm regards,

Tim (& Jean)
Swiss Chalet Lodge, Paihia

2.AA Morning Light in Paihia from the Swiss Chalet Lodge

PS. Following our stay in Paihia, we headed back to Auckland. From there we flew back to Napier. Commercial flying within New Zealand serves (for this American) as a kind of memento of US commercial flying of the early 1960s. This humane sort of flying—for the general public—is long gone from the States and is likely to disappear from New Zealand before the current decade becomes mere history. I offer the photo below as a memento of humane air travel, so distant from the evil provocations—and the unpleasant counter-processes—of the current age.

2.AB Deplaning at Napier, 6 January 2015

15.01 Napier Port: Comings & Goings

1.A Welcome Boxes at Napier Port's West Entrance

1.B Perspective on Napier Port from Breakwater Road, State Route 50

Anyone living in Napier's Ahuriri district can tell you that there's much coming and going in or near the neighborhood. The district's next-door neighbor—to the east—is Napier Port. In descending order of frequency, one sees trucks, trains, and ships entering and leaving the port '24/7', as they say. As in any other human activity, there are rhythms  governed by the time and seasons. For example, cruise ships, besides a few outliers, call at the port from late November to early April. More basically, there's probably a preference by ship masters to arrive or depart from the port in daylight, all other things being equal.

Not that Napier presents difficult navigational passages to and from the high seas. On the contrary, the port is not in a natural harbourage. It's at the foot of a bluff and would be entirely exposed to wind and waves were it not for the breakwater developed following the 1931 Napier earthquake. Before the earthquake, as I understand matters, the townsfolk had been divided over the issue whether to develop  harbourage in Ahuriri and the Ahuriri Lagoon or to create the man-made affair that now exists to the east of Ahuriri. The earthquake raised the Ahuriri Lagoon, thereby putting the issue to rest. The photo immediately below provides a view of the eastern part of Napier Port from the Bluff Hill Domain (Kiwis use the term 'domain' for urban parks).

1.C Diagram at the Overlook from Bluff Hill Domain

Napier Port bills itself as the 'leading port for central New Zealand'. 'Central New Zealand' is a somewhat ambivalent phrase. The phrase can't refer to either the central North Island or the central South Island. If it did, the claim would be false. Tauranga, among other things, is the leading port for the central North Island, just as Lyttleton—in metro Christchurch—is the leading port (among other things) for the central South Island. Presumably 'central New Zealand' embraces the south end of the North Island and the north end of the South Island. That's at least a geographical argument for locating the country's capital at a place like Wellington, at the south end of the North Island.

But it's not an argument for Napier's being the lead port for central New Zealand. Yet the port is, even displacing in importance the Port of Wellington, at least as determined by the number of containers handled. Container traffic worldwide is measured by a unit called the 'TEU', which equates to a Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit container or box. Each of the two welcome boxes in the lead photo, above, I'm guessing equate to 1/2 TEU. Here below are pictures of TEUs (i.e. 20-foot containers) on a train and 40-foot containers (each equating to 2 TEUs) stacked in the port. Forty-foot containers (standard, insulated, or refrigerated) have become prevalent in international commerce.

1.D 20-Foot Maersk Containers on an Outbound Train

1.E 40-Foot Containers Stacked Six High

Containerization got underway in the 1960s, impelled by the entrepreneurship of Malcom McLean in the USA and by the logistical needs of the USA in the Vietnamese War (A helpful history of containerization is The Box, by Marc Levinson). When Napier 'containerized', its employment of 'wharfies' dropped from about 550 to about 50, a drop rendered possible by the investment in the requisite container-handling infrastructure. In the early 1970s in New Zealand it was realized that not all of the country's numerous ports would be able to participate in container traffic (as opposed to what is usually called 'bulk traffic' in coal, oil, wheat, timber, etc.). The port infrastructure costs associated with containerization are substantial. In the early 1970s a government commission foresaw that Auckland and Wellington would become the primary container ports for the North Island.

This expectation has proven wrong in several ways. While Auckland has so far maintained its status as New Zealand's No. 1 import port, measured by TEUs, Tauranga is the No. 1 port overall, when measured by TEUs and bulk traffic. Indeed, Tauranga is the No. 1 export port measured by TEUs. And Napier Port has become No. 4 port overall, following Tauranga, Auckland, and Lyttleton. Wellington has little significance in New Zealand's international container traffic.

Tauranga's ascent was in part the product of political and entrepreneurial initiatives arising in Tauranga. In part it was the result of the completion in 1978 of the 8.88-km (5.5-mile) Kaimai Tunnel, cutting three hours from the transit times for freight trains operating between Tauranga and Hamilton, key city in the North Island's dairy-rich Waikato Region and Tauranga's connection to the North Island Main Trunk line. It's entirely possible that Tauranga will eclipse Auckland as the No. 1 import port. 

All other things being equal in container transportation, shipping tariffs will favor those points or corridors most balanced in inbound and outbound traffic. If a commodity can be shipped in a box (broadly defined), those who produce or consume that commodity will favor highly balanced ports, railway lines, and trucking corridors because lower rates come with traffic balance. For a port to thrive in the containerization era it must be concerned not only to have technologically advanced infrastructure, it must be concerned with traffic balance.

Because of the voluminous outbound 'box' traffic that Tauranga serves, it's best positioned of all New Zealand's ports to balance inbound and outbound box traffic. Moreover it's not constrained on its land side the way Auckland's Waitemata Harbour is constrained. Meanwhile Auckland and Napier can and do play significant roles in New Zealand's international container traffic. 

Napier is playing its TEU cards well, I gather, having captured container traffic that might have otherwise moved, say, through Wellington or Port Taranaki (at New Plymouth). Fonterra, New Zealand's large dairy cooperative, favors Napier Port, for example, for shipments from the dairy-rich Taranaki Region almost surely because maritime shipping lines offer better TEU rates over Napier Port versus over Port Taranaki. Thus, Napier Port is the top container port for 'central New Zealand', at least for right now. 

I wouldn't hazard a guess as to how Napier Port will fare, say, 50 years from now in handling TEUs. I will hazard the guess that Tauranga is likely to be the No. 1 export and import port for New Zealand. As container ships become larger (and they're getting larger), New Zealand may have no choice but to allow Tauranga to become the sole international container port for the North Island (and perhaps for all of New Zealand), with Auckland, Napier, and Lyttleton having a secondary or emergency role vis-à-vis Tauranga.

1.F East End of Napier Port's Container Yard

1.G Incoming Container Ship with Two Tugs, 8 November 2014

1.H Maneuvering the Container Ship to the Container Pier

1.I Nudging the Ship to the Container Pier

Napier Port is likely to have a continuing role to play in handling bulk traffic. Timber traffic thru Napier Port could become even more substantial than is currently the case if freight service is restored for all or a portion of the Palmerston North - Gisborne Line ('PNGL'), a railway line running 214 km (133 miles) north of Napier. Within the next few years vast, maturing forest plantations in the hinterlands of the North Island's East Coast are to be harvested. The harvesting will inundate the East Coast's limited highway capacity unless relieved by a restored PNGL. Whether Napier Port or other political or commercial interests promote the restoration of the PNGL remains to be seen.

1.J Incoming Log Trucks at Napier Weigh Station along State Route 50

1.K A Container & Timber Train Arriving in Ahuriri

1.L Flatcars with Logs Near the Liquid Bulk Terminal at Napier Port

1.M Vessel at the Timber Loading Pier, 8 November 2014

In the meantime, living in Ahuriri affords one the opportunity to see how globalization is made possible by containerization. Boxes can do amazing things.

Happy New Year,

Tim (& Jean)

PS. In preparing this blogpost I greatly benefited from reading The Saltwater Highway: The Story of Ports and Shipping in New Zealand, by Gordon McLauchlan, published in 2012, available for purchase at least in New Zealand upon publication of this blog post.

PPS. Jean and I visited Bluff Hill Domain, overlooking Napier Port, first on 8 November and then again this past Monday, 30 December 2014. On Monday late afternoon there were six ships in the port. Here's some information about the visitors, drawn from Napier Port's website and MarineTraffic.com.

Ship: Flag: Previous Port: Next Port (if known): Cargo

AAL Hong Kong: Marshall Islands: Wellington: Tauranga: General Cargo

Southern Tiare: Cook Islands: Timaru: To be advised:  General Cargo

Spirit of Auckland: Singapore: Port Chalmers (Dunedin): Tauranga: Containers

Sunny Napier II: Panama: Tomakomai: Osaka: Woodpulp

Tesoro: Panama: New Plymouth: Tauranga: Logs

Thor Independence: Singapore: Casablanca :Lyttleton: Fertilizer

1.N Spirit of Auckland at Container Pier, 30 December 2014

1.O Two EMD DF Class Locomotives in the Lead on the 4:30 PM Outbound KiwiRail Train

1.P Empty Log Flats on the 4:30 PM Outbound

1.Q Containers on the 4:30 PM Outbound

1.R Boxes, Ships, Cranes, and Sky

1.S MS Dawn Princess in Napier Port, 8 November 2014

1.T MS Voyager of the Seas, 15 December 2014

1.U MS Voyager of the Seas Leaving Napier Port

PPPS.  A subsequent blogpost surveys New Zealand road, rail, air, and maritime transport, using speculations about the country's transport futures to (among other things) cast a light on New Zealand's current transport infrastructure.