Whangaparapara - Great Barrier Island - New Zealand   

It's an amazing feeling to be back on an island we had fallen in love with four years earlier. While a lot of New Zealand had impressed us, Great Barrier, with its combination of rugged natural beauty and low level of development, yet its proximity to Auckland and all the services of a big city if you need them, appealed to us as a place we could imagine to put down a few more permanent roots in. We hadn't really planned it all out though, the idea just sort of grew on us as we got to know more about the place. Our first approach into Whangaparapara Harbour had stirred up memories of Moorea, one of the French Polynesian islands; a safe harbour backed by craggy mountain peaks. When Helmut saw a sign on the wharf offering land for sale, we followed the little arrows, treasure hunt style, to the sections on offer at the top of Harpoon Hill. A few days later, one of them was ours and Helmut had begun the process of obtaining a residency permit. As an Australian, I have reciprocal residency rights, so once Helmut's was through, we knew we would be able to come back and live on our land long term. But before all of that came to pass, we had a bit more sailing we wanted to do. It was a great feeling now to drop anchor again in Whangaparapara, with a circumnavigation under our belt and the burning dream of building a new land base, of constructing with our own hands a home for ourselves on a little piece of paradise, in a world of its own.  

Whangaparapara harbour                        click a picture to enlarge

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