Two drifters off to see the world. . .

We decided to take a week long tour to check out what the East Cape offers. We first drove up to Havelock North. We spent the next two days traveling the area between there, Hastings, and Napier. Luckily, there was a wine and food festival going on in the area. We visited a honey bee info center, cheese factory, olive plantation, fruit stands, ice cream shops, wineries, and a few breweries. Definitely enough to keep our bellies full!

After two days there, we drove up along the coast to Gisborne and camped right on the beach. After all that eating, we decided to just lounge around for a few days by the beach. We did manage to go and watch the mid-day monday Super Bowl, and Eero got in a bit of fishing.

We then drove up along the East Cape, which is very vast and very underpopulated (by people, not sheep). It was a windy, rainy day and the driving was all on windy bumpy hilly roads. So we didn’t stop to much, and Sarah was glad the day’s driving ended. We stayed on another beach (I know, it’s a tough life for us) in the Bay of Plenty.

The next few days we stayed on beaches of the Bay of Plenty, working our way through Whakatane and Opiua Bay. Eero caught a nice Kahawai fish surf casting one evening, and we had a decent fish breakfast the next morning.

We then drove down to Roturua where we went to a Maori Cultural show. During the show we got to see them paddle up the river in their waka (sacred canoe), perform various songs and dances as well as their version of the haka. Their’s is different from the one the All Blacks perform in Rugby, which is from the Wellington iwi (tribe). We also got to sample a Maori hangi, which is when they cook food interred in the ground. They wrap the food up in cloth and put in a hole over hot rocks and bury it for several hours until it’s cooked. We had a delicious feast that night of chicken, lamb and potatoes from the hangi.

The next day we saw some hot springs and boiling mud pools at Hell’s Gate Thermal Park. We also got up close with a male peacock in the parking lot since he liked the shiny camera. There was also a female peacock with several baby peacocks in the park which was neat to see.

Other than that we have spent lots of time hanging out in Masterton, with Eero getting poked and prodded by Doctors, Dentists, and physiotherapists. We also got a chance to see the world-famous Golden Shears competition in Masterton, which is a sheep shearing showdown (say that ten times fast!). It was a interesting event. It’s amazing how fast people can shear 5 sheep!

After the rain and the west coast, we drove up through Richmond and up towards the Golden Bay area. During the drive inland towards Richmond it dried up a bit. The drive up to Golden Bay was really scenic and the sun was finally out until we got to the Takaka hill (aka mountain). This was no ordinary hill, and seemed to be even more twisty and windy (with no guardrails) than many of the other twisty and windy roads that we’ve been on so far in this country. But none the less, Eero was still able to drive the beast of a handling van over the pass. However, we still couldn’t see much from the top of the pass because it was still raining and foggy. We made it down the hill though and met up with Andrea and Paul again in Pohora, which is in the Golden Bay area north of Abel Tasman National Park. They had ditched us in Queenstown to get up the coast and hopefully escape the rain. [read on]

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