Our host said to us when we arrived that the weather pattern had been the same each day for a few weeks recently, cloud at dawn which gradually broke to brilliant sunshine. And this morning was no different. The thermometer showed 2C so not much above freezing but the cloud cover was definitely clearing as arose to start the day. It wasn’t warm enough for breakfast on the terrace so we planned our day inside as we fed ourselves getting bolstered for a walk along the shores of Lake Rotoiti going as far as we thought we could manage with the knowledge that we also had to walk the same distance back to the car. We wanted a bit more knowledge of the trails along and around the lake shore so the obvious place was the ... read more

I do not use the word ‘assault ‘in the meaning that suggests inflicting actual physical harm but rather the harm it might have done to us, the walkers, had we made it to the top. Our only neighbour at the motel moved on this morning leaving us the sole occupants. The owners had been away at the Women’s World Cricket in Wellington and one of their fathers’ had been looking after the place and watching over the renovations being done in three of the apartments. We had been a bit mystified that the ‘house full’ sign was up at the end of each day and we had decided that he was only down to look after the guests that had prior bookings and save him having to clean. The weather was a bit dodgy looking again ... read more

We are starting to think that the fine weather will follow us all the way on this trip. We weren’t going to hang around too long before getting on the road as we had read conflicting reports of the time it would likely take to get to the Molesworth Cob Hut and back to Hanmer Springs, a distance of about 170km for the round trip. The road out through the Awatere River Valley to SH1 is still closed from the Cob Hut due to very heavy rainfall events last year that washed out the original rain and then the one the council prepared along the riverbank. So our drive will be in and out on the same road. Before we left home I had read on the DOC website all about the road and things to ... read more

As we hoped for, the norwester wind that had sprung up during the night calmed down as the sun rose rather dramatically from the sea on the horizon. Breakfast on the terrace in already a warm temperature was a pleasant experience and it might have been easy to say ‘let’s just kick back and not go tramping off into the forest today’. However, we have only one full day here in Gore Bay so we best make the most of it and stick to the plan of 2 forest walks. The first was the Tweedies Gully trail through bush and uphill to a fine lookout both to the north and south of the bay. The track was relatively easy except for one landslip to negotiate where ducking under a large fallen tree and then over its ... read more

The cloud that had started to roll over the hills on Banks Peninsula yesterday were forecast to spread over the city overnight and the prediction was correct.However,the cloud is also forecast to clear as the day wears on and afternoon should be sunny with 20C. So we took a dollar each way and dressed our top for summer and bottom for autumn and hoped for the best that we wouldn’t get too warm if the sun came out as predicted or too cool if the cloud cover remained all day. It was another free ride into the city and we alighted the #28 at the modern, clean and well organised bus interchange. Tauranga city could learn a lot from Christchurch as the Tauranga bus interchange is quite frankly a disgrace with undesirable people loitering requiring at ... read more