Advertisement
Published: January 8th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Kia Ora! (Maori for Hello) We landed at Rotorua airport on the 20th of Dec and since then we have been staying with Kirstie’s very kind friends, Cashy and Gary, at their lovely home in a place called Whakatane. Whakatane is a small coastal town situated in the eastern part of the Bay of Plenty on the North Island. It has a really nice climate as is shown by the fact that it’s one of the sunniest areas in New Zealand, and since we’ve been here the weather has been very nice indeed. As we’ve been settled here, we’ve both taken the time to relax after our constant and hectic travelling around Australia and the South Island. It’s been nice taking things at a much slower placer and not getting up at 6am each morning to drive hundreds of kilometres and cram a million things into each day, which is what we’ve been doing for much of the last 2 months. So we’ve been going down the beach quite a bit, enjoying the outdoors, having lots of BBQs and generally just loving the Kiwi summer lifestyle.
Our first night here was fairly excitable though as Cashy brought home a new
addition to the household... Roxy, a cute little Fox Terrier cross of 5 and half months from the local pound. We’ve all had lots of fun playing with the cool little pooch. The next day we were introduced to one of Whakatane’s delicious highlights; fresh berry ice cream that they make on the spot, blueberry is particularly good. It turns out that they’re highly addictive! In the first few days Cashy and Gary also introduced us to a couple of New Zealand’s cinematic successes;
Once Were Warriors and
Whalerider. Both of these focus on Maori culture and issues in contemporary New Zealand, and they are well worth watching.
Our first Saturday night in Whakatane was spent at a club in town called the Boiler Room where we saw a band called
Kora who originate from the area, but are now a big band in New Zealand. The gig was excellent; Kora turned out to be a reggae/dub band and were really good. All the Steinlager beer that Paul drunk turned out to produce quite a horrible hangover, but nevertheless on the Sunday we went down to local Ohope Beach and tried body-surfing, and a crab got Paul’s toe!
Christmas Day arrived quickly and it ended up being a really nice albeit unconventional day. In the morning we had champagne and strawberries in the sunshine on Ohope Beach which was particularly cool. For Christmas dinner we had seafood BBQ outdoors on the patio, which was delicious. Cashy and Gary also got us some New Zealand themed presents which was a lovely, unexpected surprise. On Boxing Day we took the dog down the beach in the morning, and in the afternoon we went to a feast of a BBQ laid on by Cashy’s boss. Everyone there was very welcoming to the Pommie strangers, and it was really nice to meet some of Cashy’s work friends. Although it was strange to be having sunshine and BBQs over the festive season, it wasn’t at all hard to get used to.
A good thing about Cashy and Gary is that they love the outdoors and the toys that go with it. While we’ve been here both of us have been out on the back of Gary’s 1000cc Kawasaki motorbike, which certainly blows the cobwebs away! Quite different from the little things we drove around in Asia. We also spent a day at
Matahina Dam, which is a man-made lake area, where we thrashed around on their awesome Jet ski.
A couple of days after Boxing Day the four of us set out on the local Kohi Point Walkway, which is a beautiful 4 hr walk from the cliffs above Whakatane around to Ohope Beach. The walk has many excellent lookouts over the town and out to sea towards Whale Island and volcanic White Island. Along the way we passed through lush green coastal bush and pohutukawa trees, isolated stretches of beach, plus the oldest Maori Pa site in New Zealand,
Toi’s Pa. A Pa is a fortified enclosure, they were increasingly constructed by tribes as Maori society became more war-like due to population and land pressures. The next day we made a trip inland towards Rotorua in order to see the Tarawera Falls; another spot of fresh natural beauty.
Before we knew it New Year’s Eve was upon us. We kept things fairly low key and had dinner on the beach just down the road at Coastlands, where we also watched yet another gorgeous sunset. Afterwards we chilled out and had a few drinks back at the house. In the
morning we got up ridiculously early to see the first sunrise of 2008, which actually turned out to be well worth it. Later that day we had a wander around the town and harbour, before having another BBQ. It’s a tough life! We did however, miss all our friends and family very much over the festive period.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.163s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 15; qc: 70; dbt: 0.0618s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Lee
non-member comment
woo, looks good. not long till you both come home. is that cashies and garry's dog, he looks awsome! hope u guys enjoy your last few weeks and see ya when your back x