Best day yet on our Odyssey?

Friday 9 January

What a day! Started with a cheeky earthquake which shook Banjo at around 8.30am… Louis reckoned it was him stomping about but no, Geonet confirmed it, about 300km north of us at Waverley.

We’d booked the 10.45 Coffee Cruise so grabbed our togs etc and dashed over to Kaiteriteri (which was already busy as and no free parking left) to hop on the big old green boat. Skipper Dave takes a max of 15 passengers on a gentle trip out to Split Apple Rock and back, with tea & coffee served at the rock. Ten of us climbed aboard and we chugged gently out of the bay with Dave telling us about the sea life in this area as we went.

We rounded Kaka Island, cruised past Breaker Bay, Honeymoon Bay, a bunch of kayakers, Ngaio Island and Ngaio Bay (only accessible by boat as all land access was privately owned), Towers Bay and finally the ubiquitous Split Apple Rock. He dropped anchor here and put the kettle on to boil for coffees and teas, then threw some bread overboard for the shoals of golden mullet that had whizzed over in a Pavlovian fashion as soon as the boat appeared here! Most of us did a quick change into togs and leapt into the water to cool off and visit the Split Apple Rock. Louis & I swam over to the caves as the tide was quite far out and explored them, then as I swam back to the boat, the mullet swam round and round me like a vortex - it was totally amazing!

Back on board the kettle had boiled and there were biscuits, coffee, tea and hot chocolate for all - I'd brought my own Earl Grey teabag just in case... it was my penultimate one from FlameTree at UoA - I sent the office a pic and a wassup requesting further supplies!

Such a cool laid back jaunt - made even more fun because it turned out that there were two other University of St Andrews people aboard - one a current second year student and Marion who graduated 8 years after me! Lots of chat with the current student who loved the old stories and shared what it was like now! Strangely of 10 passengers on board, 6 were from Scotland and 3 of us were St Andrians - what are the odds?

Back to Banjo for lunch and a siesta before returning to Kaiteriteri late afternoon where we did find a beachfront park and offloaded the kayak, inflated it and set off on its first voyage of 2026 - retracing our cruise steps over to Split Apple Rock - about 3kms away.

It was so good that Louis could enjoy the kayak at last - his back was too painful all of last year but the surgery seems to have sorted that.

Journey out was fairly tame and we made good time - but heading back the wind changed direction and whipped up quite a swell so we got very wet! Bit of a rollercoaster ride with extra splashing!

Packing up we got chatting to some guys who said they were here for the fireworks (second rescheduling from NYE) so we nipped back to Banjo to wash & dry the kayak, shower, change, have dinner then head back AGAIN to Kaiteriteri for the fireworks - which were fab and well worth the aborted first trip and the successful second trip! We snuck into just about the last parking spot in town - sneakily next to the boat ramp and the most boujee beach chairs ever! We took our low chairs and got a front row seat down on the wet sand and it was awesome!

Happy not so New Year! 🎇