Photo shows the unmistakable volcanic hump of Rangitoto Island just off the Auckland Coast from Tiritiri Matangi's shore in the Hauraki Gulf.

The small island of Tiritiri Matangi lies just off the end of the Whangaparaoa Peninsula in the Hauraki Gulf. It's a place we like to visit whenever possible. It is an open sanctuary managed by DOC with a lot of help from volunteers. It was one of the earliest of the restoration sites to open its doors to visitors. Most of the island sanctuaries are closed unless you have a permit - the reason being it's hard to control re-invasions of little mammals and other unwanted invaders, especially as it is a painstaking business ridding these places from them in the first place.

NZ's native fauna and flora has a hard job surviving, at least the species that have evolved on the mainland, as the introduction of more competitive (and smarter?) animals and plants from around the world has seen a precipitous decline in what was here before people turned up. It was bad enough after the arrival of the first Polynesians, but got even worse after Europeans turned up. The British colonists didn't take to the NZ bush and brought in anything that reminded them of home with disastrous consequences.

There is an ongoing attempt to try and reverse the disappearance and extinction of truly native species and the island sanctuaries are a key part of the strategy. Places like Tiritiri allow NZers to experience what NZ might have been like hundreds of years ago.

It's taken a long time to get Tiritiri to where it is now. It started with almost bare grassland and a few native bird species. Unwanted mammals, including rats, mice, stoats rabbits and hedgehogs were eradicated and have been kept out by a combination of poisoned bait and traps.

Plants, especially trees, had to be planted in their tens of thousands and bird species that had long gone from the island were painstakingly reintroduced from other islands where they were still surviving. That included stitchbird / hihi; saddleback / tieke; parakeets/ kakariki; robins; kokako; whiteheads. Takahe and little spotted kiwi were rescued from the South island, almost extinct in their home ranges. Tiritiri has been such a success that it is now a source of bird populations for re-introductions elsewhere.



Kereru / NZ pigeon



Kakariki / red fronted parakeet: mini version of the larger kaka parrot



Tieke / saddleback / : noisy but vulnerable!



Kokako/ wattled crow: seen but not heard on this trip; heard but not seen in Pureora Forest on our Te Araroa walk earlier in the year.

It's hard anchoring at Tiritiri because you need a light NE wind and no swell to anchor safely. Fortunately, the conditions were just right after motor sailing across from the tip of the Coromandel Peninsula in light winds. We managed two trips ashore and were waken up in the early morning with a true dawn chorus: hundreds of bellbirds, tuis, saddlebacks, kereru, kakariki, gulls, oystercatchers and other birds, including quite a few British settlers (skylarks, blackbirds and thrushes) all squawking away in unison.

These restoration sites really depend on volunteer help, or lots of money, or both and that's a hard ask. The Key Government recently declared that they were going to commit to a "pest free NZ" by 2050, but only allocated $25 million to it. The cost of ridding NZ of mammals it doesn't want (possums, mustelids etc) has been estimated at over 50 billion dollars so maybe the announcement was all hot air and aimed at sidelining the recent Labour/ Greens agreement to cooperate in the run up to next year's election. We'll see!

We are currently anchored in the Kawau / Mahurangi area and heading back towards Tutukaka soon.



Tiritiri Matangi - Hobbe's Beach