After a week of slightly dodgy weather, Sunday morning dawned just as hoped for our group of nineteen as we made an early departure. There were a few fun and games, and Karen did really well shoehorning our big yellow bus into the Sandspit pay&display carpark. No escape from the parking meter anywhere!

Our chartered vessel located, we were greeted by our very cute, attentive
captain’s mate, Salty, the K9 as we settled in for our trip over to the island,
via Kawau to drop a couple off.

We had a slightly choppy crossing to Motuora on our character-filled boat, but there were calmer seas as groups boarded the inflatable boat to shore.

We decided to stay as one big group to explore the island. A few of the
tracks at the southernmost end of the island are pretty overgrown, but it was much better through the rest of the island.

One of the favourite spots for the day, was the aptly named “Still Bay” on the eastern side of Motuora. It’s an absolutely gorgeous, almost encapsulated bay, with its own little island that we all thoroughly enjoyed exploring. We could happily have stayed all day, but lunch and a great lunch spot were calling.  We had picture-perfect views and soft grass to loll around on.

With more to see, we headed north up the island and found the beginning of a gannet colony, with babies nearly as big as their parents! There were real gannets sitting contently beside plastic gannets, and gannet and other bird noises blaring from the speakers close by.

After we’d covered the tracks on the island, we headed back to the drop-off point to swim. We were being watched constantly by the vigilant dotteral daddy, who kept an eye on us all until our charter arrived at 3.30 pm.

Our second inflatable boat trip of the day took us back to our vessel. Thankfully the breeze had dropped; if it hadn’t, we might have been waiting a while.

On our way back to Sandspit, the captain kindly stopped by another adjacent island to show us the wreck of the historic, surprisingly large Rewa. Motuora is a lovely island, and the bird life is pretty cool, so if you have the chance to sail/motor there, or hire a vessel, or even paddle there, it’s worth doing (we did meet a paddler at Still Bay who had come over from Martin’s Bay).

And if you time it for right on low tide you’ll have more to see around the foreshore and can explore an extra track.