It was like a Kiwi version of that famous scene from Titanic. only without the romance. Mr Celine Dion. And the ship stayed afloat. Still, I was at the bow of the boat, wind flicking my hair, heart all aflutter.
The cause of this excitement? Three dolphins playfully gliding through the sapphire sea below me, flipping and weaving like the water was liquid silk.
Time slips away on the Sealink ferry as we sail through the Hauraki Gulf, past the tip of the Coromandel Peninsula, across the notorious Colville Channel, and slide into Tryphena Harbour on the south side of Great Barrier Island.
Late in the afternoon after we check into our rooms, I use the opportunity to take a dip in the sea – the water is so clear I could be in the tropics. But it’s much closer to home than the tropics. With 700 permanent residents, the beautiful Barrier is a quick half-hour flight from Auckland.
Early in the morning the ever-cheery Steve Billingham of Great Barrier Tours takes us to Whangaparapara where we board Chris ollivier of Hooked on Barrier’s boat, Sundancer. our first stop is New Zealand’s last whaling station before we bob around cliffs through the Broken Islands, past more dolphins and drop anchor in stunning Port Fitzroy.
Floating on emerald waters sheltered by bush-clad hills and inlets, Chris whips up a lunch of barbecued skewers and salad drizzled with his homemade kaffir lime dressing, which we wash down with a glass of fine sauvignon blanc.
We disembark onto the jetty at former international yachtsman Tony Bouzaid’s Glenfern Sanctuary. His 230ha labour of love is a section of the Kotuku Peninsula protected from the rest of the island by a 2km pest-proof fence. We stroll through the stunning old native forest – home to boisterous Kaka, shining cuckoo, banded rails and black petrels.
one by one we then cross a swing bridge to a 600-year-old Kauri tree and climb up onto a small lookout high above the forest floor. The Barrier itself is bush-clad and unspoilt – 70% of the island is administered by the Department of Conservation.
In the morning we chatter our way through a 40-minute walk through bush to the steamy Kaitoke Hot Springs, and from there the day just gets better – Steve shows up on his sparkly blue and chrome three-seater Crazyhorse trike! Two of us sit behind him and whoop as we blat over the hills and down onto beautiful oedlands Beach where I spend the next hour ducking and diving in the waves along with the surfers, while the rest of the group basks in the sun on the powder-white sand.
It feels all too soon before we board a tiny nine-seater plane and fly back to Auckland. The Hauraki Gulf is glittering below, and in it, dolphins and boats lounge lazily in the Sunday sun. It’s the most stunning flight of my life.
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