On June 25th we left home of Gore and headed north. The farm was set with instructions for three different people to look after at various stages, feeding dogs etc. We pretty much just drove the South Island straight up and it was a touch over 900km to my cousins place in Newlands, Wellington where we stayed for a couple of nights. I had to sort a fuel air block here which meant the vehicle was hard to start, bypassing the secondary filter fixed that. The 1st day of poking about was down to Cape Pallisar but I missed the turn off and ended up at Ocean Beach and so went for a nosey in the rain.
The track was recently washed out but driveable so we carried on to meet a chap on the road for a bit of a yarn and then as far as we felt comfortable on our own near a large slip. About now we were getting a very persistent knock coming from somewhere under the rear of the vehicle. With Cousin Kim jumping on the towbar and Laura inside telling if it was banging and me underneath in my farm wet weather gear we discovered a lower shock bolt not as tight as it should be, the knock was not even noticeable outside, the noise just travelled through the cabin. After a couple of detours
we made it to the first of 5 lighthouses we were to visit on the trip. The climb is short but to be fair is a bit of a killer!
Grazing seems to be a free for all in the area.... We decided even though we have thousands of our own sheep since we were on holiday we could 'take a photo'!
From here it was up to Napier. However we took the long scenic way, over the Rimutakas, up to Woodville, across some really hard hill country farm land (I couldn't farm there!) to Kimbolton and out to Mangaweka before onto Taihape. The 'Gentle Annie' road from Taihape which is a nice drive, just a pity it is all tarseal now. There was alot about this drive that reminded us of home with the tussock. It had stopped raining for a few hours which was nice and gave us a chance to have a look about Napier before tea. Seemed like a nice place so spend a couple of days here being nosey. The tides were all wrong so we could only look at the beach to Cape kidnappers and it was still raining! We did find a beach at Ocean Beach to go out onto to have lunch in the cold!
There was a heavy storm warning in place as we took off the next day in very heavy rain heading for Lake Waikaremoana. The drive was actually pretty awesome. Shame about having to make our lunch in the vehicle at the lake but although we didn’t get the views there was also no dust and just mist and the waterfalls were humming. This was to be one of the more memorable roads in the trip.
Old visitor centre - a new multi million dollar one is being built This one was well past it!
Suitable shelter for lunch we thought but it was pretty leaky!
Great roads
Once we got well through the tarseal started again, the road prior to this was in great condition up until the saddle where the logging trucks were using the road and the rain eased. This was wild Urewera country where horses were roaming and the houses were in generally poor condition. At Murapara it was an easy drive straight in Whakatane where we arrived about 5pm and had a nice evening with relations. It was now clear skies and the forecast was good! There was a significant amount of dirt on the paj from the adventures so far so the next morning was a check of everything and a wash before we headed clockwise around the East Cape.
