Round the East Cape
East Cape lighthouse
Originally uploaded by aitchbee. After having a wonderful time seeing all the family over christmas, and stuffing ourselves silly with the wonderful food that everyone cooked we headed off from Tauranga and went east. We stopped at the Ohope Outdoor Bookstore, a secondhand bookshop that is set up on someones front yard, with heaps of containers of books. The views along the coastal road are amazing. I had to keep stopping the car so I could get a good view as well. I loved the drive, really wished that we had a week to do it in, rather than just a few days. We stopped at a B&B for the night where they grew practically all the food they served us - bananas included! Plus fish fresh from the sea. They even had pigs... Des tried to make friends, and perhaps it was better that we weren't served sausages at breakfast.
In Te Araroa we had a look at the largest pohutakawa tree in the world. It was truely a monster of a tree! It's believed to be about 300 years old. We ventured out to the easternmost point in NZ to see the lighthouse that's there, perched on a clifftop, and overlooking a small island (East Island... I knew about the North Island, and the South Island, but I never knew that there was an East Island. I wonder if there's a West Island). Had a night in Tokumaru bay, camping in someone's backyard. He'd converted his garage to a dorm-room and put up an outside kitchen for campers. Not a bad way to get some extra cash in the summer! The whole East Cape felt so isolated compared to most of the other places in NZ that I've been to. There's not much for a long way.
From Tokomaru Bay we drove down to Gisborne, and on for another hour to a wee settlement called Morere where there are some hot springs. Arrived in time to make some dinner and then head for a soak once the sun was setting and the day had cooled down a bit. South again to Napier where we admired the Art Deco town centre, and became masters at spotting the ziggurat motif on the buildings. Stopped at a couple of wineries on the way back to Dannevirke and then the Tui Brewery at Mangatainoka on the way back to Wellington.
Some more photos on Flickr.