MY SCHOOL JOURNAL

On the 11th of February I went camping on Motiti Island at Kohukohu.

Kohukohu is a small township on the shore of the upper reaches of the Hokianga harbour in Northland, Kohukohu means “misty place”.

The Island is really small, maybe ten or fifteen meters long and at its widest two meters.  The Island only sticks up about a foot above the water when the tide is in. My friends and I kayaked over to Motiti from the Kohukohu jetty when the tide was in, it took about half an hour to get there.

Motiti Island.

On the Island.

Kayaking across the harbour.

First we unloaded everything and then set up camp, my friends had brought a massive tent! It was hard to put up and keep upright in the wind, then we had lunch and went exploring, we tried to go swimming but it was COLD!

That night we had sausages and potatoes for dinner, we tried to make smoors but they were awful because the gas stove wouldn’t toast the marshmallows properly and they kept sticking to it and burning, the scent of charred sugar filled the evening.

The sunset from the island.

We sat out in the dark and watched the stars, we saw SpaceX’s star-link satellites fly across the sky, we watched as the moon rose like a giant, glowing, eyeball, making a glimmering river of tears across the still water. Moonlight shone on seafoam at the edge of the tide, stark, white, lace against the black water. Finally, to the sound of screaming birds, exhaustion clawed us into oblivion.

The next morning I got up early and went for a walk, I saw flounder in the shallows, I found some bamboo in a mangrove and made a spear from it and an old fish hook and some nylon. We had breakfast, and sat on the beach, we watched shags roosting on the sharp, pebbly shore, occasionally they would glare at us.

The sun rising.

When it warmed up and the tide came in, we went swimming, a huge kauri log had floated up to the island and we ran up and down it, rocking it from side to side and diving off into the water. It was fun!

We had goose jerky dipped in chocolate for lunch then I tried to spear porori that were swimming in the mangroves, there were eels and mullet too, the water was murky and warm, it was hard to see what was touching me and it freaked me out! I broke my spear on a fish, all I got was one scale

The next day we got up early and watched the sun rise from the log, mist rode down the hills behind us like angry thoughts and enveloped the town of Kohukohu. Steam rose from our coffee, we nibbled cookies, I tried not to notice the weird, wet cookie lumps in the bottom of my cup.

Mist flowing over Kohukohu.

The tide was out so we walked down to the lowest rocky point, I cut my feet on oysters that were hiding in the mud. When we got back I packed up my things and we loaded them onto the kayaks and set off to meet Mum, we paddled over to the jetty against a racing tide which tried to spin the kayaks round and suck us up the harbour. There were oysters and crabs under the jetty, but I wasn’t hungry.

me and Imogen on Kohukohu jetty.

Our island from the water.

After I said goodbye, Mum and I headed home, I was tired from the screaming birds keeping us awake, it was good to see all my ducks and my puppy again, and sleep in my own bed.

I would like to go back again, but next time I will chase away the birds. I learned that there was once a blacksmith who lived on the island, he had a dog and people would swim their horses out at low tide to have them shod, 1827 Augustus Earle, an artist at that  time painted Motiti, it was much bigger and looks to have had a village on it, over the years the grinding tide must have caused enough erosion to have shrunk the island to the tiny slip of land that is left.

Motiti Island in 1827