Atop ‘The Needle’ overlooking Tryphena. Photo / Michael Botur
Great Barrier Island may feel timeless, but from electric dirt bikes to world-class gin and slicker ferry bookings, Aotea is embracing a wave of low-key upgrades. Michael Botur shares what’s new and how to make the most of your visit.
Standing on the bow of the big red SeaLink ferry as it makes its 99km journey across the Hauraki Gulf, it’s easy to think nothing ever changes on Aotearoa’s fourth-largest island.
The hills are always green, the birds always abundant and the water always inviting.
However, some terrific modern technological comforts have recently arrived on Aotea in the form of electric dirt bikes, telescopic stargazing tours, Starlink internet and Airbnb.
Not to be left behind, SeaLink has also released a faster, more intuitive and mobile-friendly online booking platform.
It costs a lot to visit ‘The Barrier’, whether going by car or by air – so take your time and expect repeat visits in future to really gain value.
The sea ferry can cost nearly $1500 for a car load packed with people, food and gear, while flights from one of several operators between Auckland, Coromandel and Northland tend to begin at around $200 per person, one way, excluding luggage.
While the island is as safe and supportive for carless hitchhikers as ever, the main advantage of taking your own car is you can fill it with all the food, clothing and equipment you need to make the most of your experience.
So, how to combine indoor and outdoor comforts once you get there?
Opting for the SeaLink ferry, my partner and I packed her vehicle with food, clothing, snorkelling gear and a surfboard which would barely touch water that week (a terrible problem – the beaches were just too balmy).
Arriving at lunchtime after the 7.30am sailing, we stretched our legs by scrambling up the 627m Mt Hobson (Hirakimatā) just before dusk (not exactly quick – it’s a minimum three-hour return journey).
There was still time on that first day to get home for Netflix, wine and a hot dinner at the Medlands Sanctuary Airbnb – with plenty of sunset left.
On the second day, we hired a ‘Motubike’ – a slower, more mindful way to get around the island’s ring road (well, it’s more like a horseshoe – you can mostly only drive the north, eastern and southern sides of the island.)
Think of those scenes in Star Wars in which the characters hop onto a speeder bike, give a flick of the wrist, and it zooms away, and you’ll understand what a Motubike is like.
These electric Ubco dirtbikes are automatic, Kiwi-made, have a 50km/h speed restriction, and you only need a driver’s licence, shoes and a little safety training to ride them (recharging every 60km).
Picking our bikes up from Claris – which is metres from the airport – Motubikes gave us a blissful ride through cool, cloudy mountaintops and canyons before the road dipped down to follow the many sparkling east coast beaches.
Brought to the island by laid-back young entrepreneur and part-time Navy navigator Seagar Clarkson in 2019, it’s no surprise this very 21st-century transport option has been garnering ecstatic reviews from Barrier visitors.
Prices are reasonable, too – you can expect to pay $85 for a full 24 hours of use, which should get you from home to the islands’ many hiking tracks, small pubs and cafes, back home for a freshly charged battery, then out again when you realise you can’t stop thinking about some palm-fringed beach you passed earlier in the day.
The customer service at Motubikes was equal parts supportive and casual – we were invited to drop into the “store,” (a shipping container), open it up by ourselves, and replace our own batteries when we drained them on an over-the-mountains visit to the highly recommended Glenfern Sanctuary, where we climbed a swingbridge into the canopy of a lofty kauri tree – an experience offered nowhere else in New Zealand.
The Barrier may, in fact, be the most trusting, safe place you’ll ever visit in New Zealand. Numerous businesses, lacking eftpos, wrote out their bank account number when I didn’t have cash and invited me to pay at some unspecified time in the future.
One of those businesses was Island Gin, a recently built distillery just north of Claris. I was impressed to see pallets stacked with hundreds of bottles awaiting customers when I stopped in for a tasting – showing its fast-growing reputation for excellent product.
Fresh off the back of winning World Gin Awards once again this year, owner Andi Ross gave me a tasting of exquisite feijoa, damson plum and London Dry gins and told the story of how she began as a hobbyist brewer before officially launching in 2019, finding a market and winning worldwide awards and plenty of fans.
The tasting was complimentary, though the deluxe gin we bought was pricey. It’s partly the cost of the bespoke packaging. Island Gin’s reusable bottles are works of art, tailor-made to resemble kina/urchins, with gorgeous glass lids, while the distillery machine – named Frank – is extremely modern.
When I emerged from a delirium of wild snorkelling, gin tasting and sunstroke, our Medlands Sanctuary Airbnb host, Deb Kilgallon, took us out for a Good Heavens stargazing experience on a Friday night on the nearest beach.
For a self-taught astronomer, Kilgallon is deeply knowledgeable, and makes the experience comfy with blankets, binoculars, hot chocolate and an explanatory recap email afterwards to help you rave to your friends about what you saw.
The island is a Dark Sky Sanctuary, with no streetlights or light pollution, and Kilgallon showed us – through her powerful telescope – the twin suns of Alpha Centauri, the mountains of the Moon and the unmistakable hula-hoop around Saturn, vividly clear 1.3 billion kilometres away.
While the night sky offers change each time, with constellations rising and falling, change comes slowly to the Barrier. The simplicity of the good old days remains, while new perks – solar-charged electric dirtbikes, world-class local gin, improved SeaLink ferry booking service, and other innovations are offering subtle improvements on an ancient island.
Unless you own a boat, there are usually four options to get to the island.
The writer travelled courtesy of SeaLink, and received support from Good Heavens Stargazing and Medlands Sanctuary.