Greetings from wind swept and very wet Napier. We hope to explore here today and will blog about that another day. These jottings are from our last few days of travelling from the north Bay of Plenty to the East, Hawke's Bay. We stayed in a motel in Opotiki and explored locally along the East Coast Highway to Te Kaha, the coast is shown in this first photo. Very remote almost entirely Maori and a great success story with very successful locally run kiwi fruit orchards. We had a glorious drive back along this road with the setting sun turning the bark on the trees blood red.
On the drive to Gisborne we came upon this wonderful suspension bridge, one of the oldest in NZ. The water in the river below the cleanest we have ever seen.
We stayed in this wonderful house in Gisborne, well about 20 miles out into the bush. Glorious views across the countryside and only the local possum for company. He woke us at 2 in the morning jumping about on the roof, collecting spare walnuts that we had inadvertantly left on the deck!!
This is a very typical sight in NZ, tree planting and also cropping. Some of the hillsides are so steep that the workmen have to be dropped in by helicopter and then abseil down the hill planting and then cutting down the trees.
We enjoyed our visit to NZ's National Arboretum at Eastwoodhills. The autumn colours were spectacular and it is a hidden gem, hardly anyone else there.
Gisborne, as all history students will know is where James Cook first landed in NZ in October 1769. Many people here rue that day, but if it wasn't him then someone else would have brought European life to this part of the world and amy not have treated the locals any better. This statue commemorates this first landing and Phileas took the opportunity of posing with her hero!!
On the road to Napier we came across the Morere Hot Springs - no time for a dunk unfortunately but we did have another wonderful walk through the bush, this time a lot of Nikau palms and the ever present tui, goldeneye, pigeon and fantails.
It looks like we are in for a very wet day so probably best to check out a local winery and then sit back with a good book!!
Best wishes
Phileas
Fogg here. As you can see I am now 'getting my eye in ' with some half decent photos! but time is running out on our computer so I also send my very best wishes to you all. Next blog from Wellington before we take the ferry over to South Island.
Fogg x
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