The old coast road to Russell

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We're going to try and post some information and photos about any trips around New Zealand we do. We live in an amazingly beautiful country, and want to share it with all who are interested.

Here is the first NZ entry - a brief description of our trip the other weekend up to Russell.

We decided to spend the last Sunday before the football (soccer) season on a day out. You know, go for a bit of a tiki tour, have lunch somewhere...nothing too taxing... so 314km later...!

We started off quite early (luckily!) and took off up State Highway One. The plan was to go up the old coast road to Russell. This we did do, but our couple of stops along the way took a lot longer than we'd planned. First stop was at Mimiwhangata. What a stunning place. The road in was narrow (very much one lane) and windy, and gravel.

We met a couple of people at the end of the road, parked up by the beach, who claimed they were local and had only just got there. They had a very flat tyre, the spare ( a space saver - what rubbish!)
Terns
Terns
didnt fit, and they had brought their dog into the park (a big no-no, kiwi territory etc). The DOC ranger eventually came down and loaned them a spare.

The beach was great, stony, windswept, deserted apart from the birds, the air was damp and salty. Doesnt all that sound wonderfully romantic! The views were limited by the cloud (it wasnt the best of weather that day) and the headlands, but even so...a pretty stunning place.

From Mimiwhangata, we drove back along that narrow, windy track to the main road. Even that road was windy, the views amazing out to the coast: hills and valleys, fields and the ocean stretching out before us.

Next stop was Bland Bay, and "morning tea". Again, deserted for most of the time. Three guys in a ute drove down on the beach, had a look out to sea, and drove off again. Too rough for fishing maybe? The harbour / bay at Bland Bay is far from bland. Even in calm weather, we can imagine it being hard work getting past the rocks. We could see odd bits of 'white horses' where the rocks were jutting up just below the water.
Pompallier Mission House, Russell
Pompallier Mission House, Russell

Heading back towards Russell, we took another detour, this time out to Rawhiti and the end of the road. Neither of us had been out that way before, the road doesnt go anywhere except Rawhiti - a small village - and the start of the Cape Brett track, which we have yet to walk. Still more stunning scenery, but no rain this time. It seemed to rain only when we were on the main road, and never when we got out and walked. How lucky was that!

Finally we got to Russell, a bit late for lunch, but we stopped to refuel anyway. We looked at a couple of cafes, but they were full of real tourists (and at real tourist prices too). Russell didnt seem to cater for slightly poorer locals who just wanted a simple lunch! But we found somewhere, with nice enough food, although the slices werent up to much. After lunch we visited Pompallier Mission House - had a fantastic tour. If we hadnt have had the tour, we would have thought it was a waste of money, nothing much was labelled and the building isnt exactly huge. But the tour (included in ticket price) was really informative, and really fun and interesting. We found out all about the printing presses, the bookmaking and binding, the tannery, and the life of the 'brothers' living and working there, complete with demonstrations os most of the parts of the book making process.

Reluctantly, Colin let me persuade him to take the inland road back to Kawakawa rather than pay for the ferry. But it actually took about the same amount of time, and the road was really good. For a metal back road.

Finally we got home, much later than planned, and having missed out on a couple of other things we wanted to do that afternoon. But it was a great day out, somewhere different for us. We have no need to take the slower road to Russell, we have little reason to go to Russell either really. At least we can tell these couch surfers etc who stay with us that the coast road to Russell is worth the drive.

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