Tiritiri Matangi the name of this new island, means “tossed by the wind” or “looking to the wind.” It is a beautiful island best known for its Tiritiri Light (the oldest working lighthouse) and its natural bird life sanctuary. The later giving the island its third name the “Bird Island.”
Truth be told, Matt and I are not ornithologists. We enjoy seeing the birds, but are not true bird watchers. But since we are so close we decided to go see what we could see.
Originally, this island was cleared off for farming and farm animal grazing. This lasted until the 1970’s which left very little of the original vegetation. In the early 80’s a community based habitat restoration program started transforming the island brining it to its true beauty today, a Scientific Reserve and one of the most successful conservation projects in the world.
Walks and the Reserve
From 1984, the island has been the focus of a wide-scale native forest regeneration project, where over 250,000 native plants have been propagated on the island. The island was chosen as a unique and protected place to provide a public window for rare New Zealand native birds.
There are several trails that traverse across and around the island where visitors can find over eighty-seven species of birds. Our trail is the yellow line where we started at Hobbs Beach and headed to the right (we accidentally missed the Wattle track).
Tiritiri Matangi
We saw so many beautiful birds. Many we could not identify, many flew away too fast for me to photograph, and some were too far away to capture with my iPhone. But I got a few! My favorite birds are the Tui and the Kereru because they are so darn colorful. We saw two different quail families with their baby chicks. They are so funny to watch.
The Australian Magpie has a beautiful singing voice and the NZ Bellbirds were everywhere!
The trails were a mix of small dirt paths to large open fields, to nicely built wooden bridges. It is amazing to me that these trees are only 40-50 years old as they seem so majestic already.
The Oldest Working Lighthouse
Built in 1864, this is New Zealand’s oldest working lighthouse and Auckland’s first lighthouse. The Tiritiri lighthouse was shipped from England in 1864, and equipped later with a blindingly bright light of one-million candlepower. Now it has a 50-watt lamp charged by solar panels. The light flashes every 15 seconds and can be seen for 18nm.
Its beams stretched over 80 kms! Over 21m tall, (91m above sea level) and 4.7m in diameter at the base. It has been updated several times, but it continues to protect sailors in this harbor for the past 150 years!
On this site you will also see the signal station (mast) built in 1912, parts of the diaphonic foghorn (1935) and the lighthouse keeper’s house (1918).
We had some beautiful views along our walk. Yes, that is Sugar Shack in the distance.
Moturekareka, The Home of the Shipwrecked Rewa
Just 3nm from Kawau is a little island called Moturekareka which is the home of a large shipwreck. We decided to take the dinghy out to see the remains of the once grand Rewa ship.
When she was built in 1889, the Rewa was called Alice A. Leigh and she was a huge 3,000 ton, 4 masted, steel barque carrying 31 sails!
Images property pf State Library South Australia and Yardy Yardy Yardy
She had many adventures and was a true beauty (see this website for photos and her full history). In 1920, she was sold to a NZ company and was renamed “Rewa.” In 1922 she was put on a mooring and left to rot for 10 years. Then an young entrepreneur decided he wanted to convert the old ship into a luxurious drinking and gambling establishment. He had it towed to Moturekareka where he had hoped to position her to sit across the bay during high tide. However, things did not go well for them and she sank into the position where she rests today.
It is so very sad to see shipwrecks yet we are drawn to them. It is amazing to see what the ocean and weather and time do to steel! Just a small shell of its former glory remains and unbelievably there was no sea life around it. No fish, no coral, nothing.
And yes, Matt had to drive our dinghy into the bow of the Rewa because …. well because he could.
Our blog runs 10-12 weeks behind live events. This blog post occurred around the end of February. We explore the island of Kawau in our last blog post where we find a Coppermine and smelting house!