After a good night at the Clifton Beach we drove into Napier on a chilly wet morning. 13C, I needed two thin sweaters and my rain jacket, apparently Napier is often the hottest place in the country, not yesterday!!
On February 3rd 1929 a big earthquake and subsequent fire destroyed much of Napier and it was rebuilt. Therefore the city is full of Art Deco buildings, unfortunately many facades have been ruined by modern canopies, but if you look above them the original buildings can be seen. We warmed up with a coffee and visited the cathedral which has a chancel dedicated to the first Maori Anglican Bishop. It is decorated with traditional woven panels and all the woodwork has Maori carving. The stained glass windows are wonderful too.
I fancied doing a bit of shopping, or window shopping, but it is impossible with Michael! I bought some flip flops (jandals here!) for use in and out of the van and that was it!!
We wasted quite a bit of time finding the Mitre 10 store to buy a hose clip fitting for a screw tap. We have not been supplied with one and our hose won’t fit onto the public potable water taps without it. Job done for $5 [£2.50]. We also wanted some bread and eventually found a New World, but I couldn’t park so we went to a bakery back down the road and bought sausage rolls and a small quiche for lunch. The sausage rolls were really good!
We then set off again first of all driving along the coast then the road goes inland up and down through very hilly countryside. We met a lot of huge logging trucks take very large pieces of timber out.
The weather continued to be wet, we stopped at Lake Titirangi for our lunch where an obliging black swan posed for me!
One very interesting feature of the drive was the Mohaka River Gorge which had a huge railway viaduct over it. The countryside was amazing, lots of lumpy bumpy hills, then forest, then coastline. The farms on the lower land were either sheep or dairy, with grass or maize being grown.We turned off the main road down to Mahia Bay where there was a council run freedom campsite on the beach, another wonderful location.
These council approved freedom camping sites are a new phenomenon since our last visit. They have limited spaces and usually a toilet block. The loos here were spotless as they were at Clifton Beach. There were a few other campers there, but we were all well spread out so that was fine. The rain had stopped by the time we got there and we had a walk along the beach to blow away the cobwebs.
Weather: wet, damp, grey!
Total km 194
Today we left at about 9.0am and drove an hour and half to Gisborne. First of all we visited the I-Site to buy a permit to camp up along the coast. Then we did a short shop in Pak n Save, had coffee, M went to a liquor store for some gin, we filled up with diesel and set off again.
The driving was very similar to yesterday but with fewer steep hills and more coastal scenery. This coastline is spectacular with big headlands then dropping down to bays with the surf rolling in. More logging trucks today, we still haven’t found where they are coming from, there must be a large clear felling operation going on somewhere. The forests are huge, pine for commercial use, with deciduous trees on the forest edges. I am sure most of you won’t believe that agapanthus grow wild here, they originate from garden escapees and I think they are branded as a noxious weed, but I think they look wonderful lining the roadsides. I always think that you haven’t seen tree ferns until you come to this country, but you haven’t seen agapanthus either!!
Sorry they are not all quite in focus
We stopped for lunch at Tolaga Bay which has a wharf 660ft long. It was built between 1925-29 to allow produce from this area to be shipped out more easily. What is now a small village was once the largest port on the east coast. The port declined due to the Depression and WW2, and it became more economic to shift freight by road.
After lunch we walked out over the headland on the Cooks Cove Walkway to a lookout to a Cove this Captain Cook visited for 6 days during his circumnavigation of NZ. The first European landing was just south of here in Poverty Bay in1769 by Cook on his ship Endeavour. Our walk took us about an hour, we could have gone down to the bay, but that would have entailed going down to sea level, then back up again. I decided my knees wouldn’t like that, we had already done a steep climb to reach the lookout.
View from the lookout
Another 30min drive took us to our planned destination for the night, Tokomaru Bay, and here we are, another beach, another campsite! The only slight problem is that it is raining!
As ever Michael is optimistic that it is “brightening up”. I am not so sure! We have got very limited cellphone or Wi-fi here, so no forecast, whatever will be, will be!
We have made contact with Sandra Ball who was a guest on the Mongolia riding trip Michael did last summer, she lives near Whakatane in the Bay of Plenty and we are heading to see her on Saturday once we have rounded the East Cape tomorrow.
We have made contact with Sandra Ball who was a guest on the Mongolia riding trip Michael did last summer, she lives near Whakatane in the Bay of Plenty and we are heading to see her on Saturday once we have rounded the East Cape tomorrow.
By the way my leg and ankle are normal size now and the bites are greatly reduced.
Weather: Mainly dry with the odd shower, grey skies. The temp didn’t get above 17C
Total km: 175
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