Mokohinau Islands

 After departing from Great Barrier Island I decided that the weather was calm enough that we could visit the Mokohinau Islands to the north.  There are not many good anchorages in the Mokohinau group but I thought we might just get away with anchoring at the very south end of the Island group.  When we arrived we found the anchorage was not well sheltered so we proceeded to motor around the island group looking for a better spot.  We almost gave up but as we came through a channel between the islands in the middle of the group we could see between islands a very sheltered spot with a small entrance between two islands opening out to a larger anchorage area.  The location turned out to be spectacular!

Tucked in between islands - note the hole in the rock to the right of True North.

The lighthouse on the island at the top of the picture is our next hiking destination 

The next day we set out to Burgess Island to hike up to the lighthouse.  Burgess is the only island in the group where we were allowed to go ashore.  All the other islands are nature sanctuaries.  We took the dinghy to the ruins of the dock used to build and supply the lighthouse back when it was manned.  There was a hiking track which started by following tracks used to haul supplies to the lighthouse before branching to a less steep switchback track up the hill.  The track took us through many ruins of buildings and a couple old gardens before reaching the lighthouse.  The views were spectacular.

Andrew at the lighthouse with the keepers house in the background 

The view down from the top

A classic lighthouse

We hiked past the lighthouse to look out to the west.  This view looks back with the trail down to the dock downhill behind the lighthouse.


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