When I mentioned to a friend, Bridget, that we were heading from Taupo to Gisborne via the Waikaremoana road she simply said ‘that’ll take a while’ and, knowing that Bridget is quite exact, I should have prompted further comment. As it turned out, we were on the road for some 6 hours that day over roads that took a lot of concentrating thanks to the hills, 180 degree bends and rolling gravel.
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It was hot and the contractors were making the most of it with some intensive baling going on. These three had this paddock baled and wrapped in no time.
The bale wrappers are pretty nifty and Euan had been asking how they did it so we stopped to watch
We turned off just before we got to Rotorua and went through Murupara, a very small town where there were plenty of kiwi characters. We were definitely classed as townies! Just out of Murupara we realised why Brig had said it would take a while. The sign said 200km to Gisborne and 95km of this was unsealed. What the sign didn’t mention was the hills and corners.
It was a great drive and through some rather wild country. Horses were just wandering on the roadside with no farm houses or civilisation in sight or even within kilometers.
Euan took this photo as I was taking one of the horses. The ferns in this country are so varied and are quite beautiful and he’s quite taken with them.
This was our first glimpse of Lake Waikaremoana, a huge lake nestled high in the Te Urewera National Park. The hike around the lake is 43km and I remember doing a large section of it when I was at school. It’s a very remote beautiful lake and every now and then we’d spot these idyllic campsites on the lake edge or meet a car towing a boat head on reminding us that we weren’t the only ones in this part of the world. It was easy to think that we were.
We had hours and hours of gravel and a few hairy moments as I tested my rally driving skills (the car really wasn’t up for it but I think Euan was just thankful we didn’t have a rear wheel drive!) and we hit the tarmac breathing a sigh of relief after both being rattled round like peas in a can. It was then I remembered that I was carrying two boxes in the boot for Mum. One containing porcelain figurines for my Auntie in Auckland, the other a whole load of china plates for my step-sister, Katie. I didn’t dare look but judging from the dust in the boot, there had been a fair bit of rattling going on.
This rocky outcrop is the Panekiri Bluff, a huge slab of rock that reminded us (albeit on a smaller scale) of the Drakensburg National Park in South Africa.
The road ran alongside the lake (straight flat road… bliss!) but only for a short time before it was back into the hills.
The toi tois were quite spectacular but unfortunately this photo doesn’t capture the golden colour so well. There were so many clumps (you can see some in the left hand side of the above photo) and they looked like bunches of spun gold.
Once out of the Te Urewera National Park and past the town of Wairoa we caught sight of Young Nicks Head (named after Captain Cooks cabin boy who first sighted NZ) and the town of Gisborne behind it.
We stayed in this huge hostel, an old Convent and full of surfies. We didn’t hang round there but headed for the nearest beach, Waikanae Beach, and sat and ate fresh fish and chips. The fish and chip standards are being raised higher and higher. We think the fish here beat the fish we ate in Invercargill.
We walked down the beach while the sun went down
then snapped away. It was a perfect evening and set us up for a long drive the next day.
View Larger Map
It was hot and the contractors were making the most of it with some intensive baling going on. These three had this paddock baled and wrapped in no time.
The bale wrappers are pretty nifty and Euan had been asking how they did it so we stopped to watch
We turned off just before we got to Rotorua and went through Murupara, a very small town where there were plenty of kiwi characters. We were definitely classed as townies! Just out of Murupara we realised why Brig had said it would take a while. The sign said 200km to Gisborne and 95km of this was unsealed. What the sign didn’t mention was the hills and corners.
It was a great drive and through some rather wild country. Horses were just wandering on the roadside with no farm houses or civilisation in sight or even within kilometers.
Euan took this photo as I was taking one of the horses. The ferns in this country are so varied and are quite beautiful and he’s quite taken with them.
This was our first glimpse of Lake Waikaremoana, a huge lake nestled high in the Te Urewera National Park. The hike around the lake is 43km and I remember doing a large section of it when I was at school. It’s a very remote beautiful lake and every now and then we’d spot these idyllic campsites on the lake edge or meet a car towing a boat head on reminding us that we weren’t the only ones in this part of the world. It was easy to think that we were.
We had hours and hours of gravel and a few hairy moments as I tested my rally driving skills (the car really wasn’t up for it but I think Euan was just thankful we didn’t have a rear wheel drive!) and we hit the tarmac breathing a sigh of relief after both being rattled round like peas in a can. It was then I remembered that I was carrying two boxes in the boot for Mum. One containing porcelain figurines for my Auntie in Auckland, the other a whole load of china plates for my step-sister, Katie. I didn’t dare look but judging from the dust in the boot, there had been a fair bit of rattling going on.
This rocky outcrop is the Panekiri Bluff, a huge slab of rock that reminded us (albeit on a smaller scale) of the Drakensburg National Park in South Africa.
The road ran alongside the lake (straight flat road… bliss!) but only for a short time before it was back into the hills.
The toi tois were quite spectacular but unfortunately this photo doesn’t capture the golden colour so well. There were so many clumps (you can see some in the left hand side of the above photo) and they looked like bunches of spun gold.
Once out of the Te Urewera National Park and past the town of Wairoa we caught sight of Young Nicks Head (named after Captain Cooks cabin boy who first sighted NZ) and the town of Gisborne behind it.
We stayed in this huge hostel, an old Convent and full of surfies. We didn’t hang round there but headed for the nearest beach, Waikanae Beach, and sat and ate fresh fish and chips. The fish and chip standards are being raised higher and higher. We think the fish here beat the fish we ate in Invercargill.
We walked down the beach while the sun went down
then snapped away. It was a perfect evening and set us up for a long drive the next day.
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