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Published: February 22nd 2009
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A little update of what we have been up to in NZ.
Stu, Simon, Steve(Simons dad) and Wayne (Sys friend from work) went on a 3 day/2night hike around Tongariro National Park (Whakapapa Village, Ski area for the North Island), they said the hike was excellant but challanging at times, poor Stus feet proved this, they were covered all over the bottom and heels of both feet, they stayed in huts which had a basic kitchen area and a long drop loo.
Bonnie and I had a hard few days we had Pedicures and facials!!
We have been to the local beach several times and played beach cricket, water skiing/biscuits on Kerepero Lake with Carl and Vanessa, which was good fun.
Stu and I hired a car for a week and travelled the East Cape and took the tent with us, the drive was good, hardly any other cars along this coast road, most of the population around this are are Maori.
The first night we found a lovely campsite onthe beach (Whanarua Bay) and we found a good spot but the ground was rock hard so an easy tent that would normally take 10mins to
put up, took us around 2hours, all good fun!
2nd day we travelled around the coast, the views were lovely, we turned into a town called Te Araroa and drove along a dirt road for 30kms to the most Eastly point in NZ and saw the light house but that night we stayed in Tolago Bay, this has the largest wharf in NZ looks very old and worn but they want to keep this here for the history, we had great weather and the beach was good for swimming, it got to around 35 degrees, so hot! This town all the street names were named after Captain Cooks crew.
The weather that night was terrible, thought the tent was going to blow away with us in, but we travelled to Gisborne, nice town but nothing really to stay around for so we carried onto Wairoa, a river side town, here has a very large population of Maori, campsite was nice, around 20 campervans arrived and all were grey nomads, travelling around the North Island for 26days, unloaded their cats on leads, dogs and pot plants, it was nice to see and to prove anyone and any age can
travel the world without doing it in 5* hotels.
We drove to Napier, this drive was more inland, rolling mountain roads, gorges, lakes, rivers, huge rail bridges, a really nice drive, we stopped off for a short walk to 2 waterfalls which was nice and worth the stop off. We got to Napier and we loved it, just everything about it was nice. Back in 1931 there was an earthquake 7.8 and this flattened Napier and Hastings, so after this and with the fashion at the time they rebuilt the city Art Deco style and still today the houses and shops are Art Deco, but it suits the town. we stayed here 2nights, met a nice couple from London (Jamie and Gemma), who were just starting their 1year of travels (not jealous HONEST!!), we did a 4hr trip to see the Gannets on the Cape Kidnappers, we were loaded on to a tractor trailer and travelled along the beach front and there was massive cliffs and they explained the history of these, which was really interesting. Saw a fur seal and thousands of gannets, they have a wing span of 6.6ft, so they arent small seagul looking birds, they
mate for life and have only one chick each breeding season. It was a good trip, recommend it!
We drove back to Wairoa and took a turn off to Lake Waikaremoana, this was a dirt track road which was good fun, I told Stu to slow down in many areas as i could see the shere drop myside, i dont think he could!! The Lake was lovely, very stunning when the waters were still, we arrived on a cloudy rainy day but the next day it cleared and was even nicer! We have said when we come to NZ in the future we should do the 4 day walk around the lake 46kms and its one of NZ Greatest Walks.
We only stayed here a night as we were meeting my sister and co at Lake Rotoma, near Rotorua for the weekend, as it was a bank holiday . The road was still dirt and took around 3hours to get back on normal road surface but again a nice drive.
We stayed in Lake Rotoma until Sunday afternoon and headed home, Stu had a nice birthday camping, sunning himself, having a ride on the biscuit onthe lake
and drinking lots.
Stu and I have really been relaxing, enjoying the rural life before heading back to good old blighty!
We went horse riding for 1.5hrs along fields and onthe beach, my horse was a A*** Hole, they weren't my words they were the owners, Bons, Sy, and Stus were timid and did what they wanted them to do. We all had a trot and Gallop, which was good fun and inthe evening we went to see Billy Connelly to see his NZ Tour 2009 in Rotorua, he was great, such a funny bloke.
We leave this week, 26th Feb!! one more blog to follow after this one.
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