Commodore
December 17, 2024

Wednesday 18 December – a walk to Schoolhouse Bay

We wanted to do another walk and thought we could go into the bay where we were anchored and walk to Mansion House, sadly it was all private property and signs kept us out. We headed back to the Mansion House Bay and walked from there. We saw the ferry drop off people, we thought we would visit the house before walking and discovered it was only open at 12:30 so we went for our walk first. It was about a 3km walk up and over to the Schoolhouse Bay. Along the way was a sign to the cemetery where there were about 6 tombstones, most for kids under 5 during the early 1900s. We were surprised to reach the summit and find a bus stop sign with a time table. These are all dirt roads and not many houses but very impressive, on closer inspection we were horrified to read the strict dress code! We spend the whole way walking down into Schoolhouse Bay wondering what a crazy little community it was. It appeared there was no School House remaining in the bay, but there were a couple of very impressive Pohutukawa trees and a public dock which we had missed. We sat on a bench in the gorgeous shade of the tree having a break, when a local came by. I asked him about the bus, and he let us in that it was just a joke! I had not read the last line. The rest of the sign looked so genuine I hadn’t questioned it, what a laugh!

When we got back to the Mansion House, we could not believe it was closed again, it only opened for an hour! We returned to PolePole and had a very chilled evening with a load more swallows deciding we were the place to roost. It was another stunning sunset.