Our road trip continued from Wellington on to Napier, on what was a rather quiet driving day, with the usual occasional mutterings of “oooh…” “ahhhhh…” and the oft-repeated “SHED!” We had a little walk through Napier, one of the world’s only (or is it most complete?) art deco towns. Neat stuff. Not particularly memorable, but cute.
From Napier, we made the slightly controversial decision to miss out on the major tourist draw cards of Taupo and Rotorua and instead opted to explore ‘Out East’. We meandered to Mahia Beach and on to Makorori for the night’s camp and that’s where it got special. “Freedom camping” sounds a little like “lifestyle retreat” to me – I fearfully expect a bunch of 70 year old nudists hanging about. In reality, it’s a term used out east to let travellers know that they are allowed to camp more or less where they please. And we pleased! Our camp for the night was a few kilometres past Gisbourne (vibey little town) on a stretch of scrub grass immediately beside the beach. We had a chilled dinner with wine and played some cards, then hit the hay and woke to share sunrise with Gisbourne – the first city in the world to see the sun each day. Morning tea/coffee was had on the beach as we walked for almost 2 hrs, seeing no more than a handful of other people. Bliss.
From Makorori, it was on to Opotiki and then Whakatane. This very cool little town offered lots to tempt us to stay, but we were on the go and heading for Coromandel, so had to settle for a quick bit of exploring and a plate of yummy wedges with sweet chilli and sour cream (old favourite from our time in Australia). As a side bar: Whakatane pubs require ‘tidy dress’ – unless, apparently, your name is Rich and then you get away with being a shoeless Joe.
Our quick trip for groceries led to two interesting finds. The first was the result of a little bit of people-watching in the parking lot: a woman wearing the most beautiful cream-and-flowered dress that didn’t modestly cover her pregnant belly for the sake of needing clothing but loudly announced “I’M PREGNANT!” with grace and panache. I’m missing those maternity shoots these days!
The second discovery was the interesting concept of a “lasagna topper”. Take a sheet of lasagna, put some meat sauce on it, somehow get the whole thing crumbed in cornmeal or whatever, and then deep fry it. One of the more confusing food concepts I’ve come across. Still not sure if I liked it or not, but Rich was pretty easily sold (surprise, surprise!). **Little update: There isn’t actually any pasta involved in this. Yep, we tried it again and it’s just crumbed meat sauce with cheese that is then deep fried. Utterly baffling…
After my daydream about photo shoots and my befuddlement about fried pasta, we were off to the gorgeous beach at Ohope, where we saw two children- or “mud monsters” as the elder child said – maybe 3 and 7 years old, covered in more sand and mud than I ever thought possible. God help that mother because she’s going to be dealing with sand for a week!
After a nice bit of sun worshipping, it was on to Matata to camp at a $12/night DOC site. That camp will go down on the record as being the second least enjoyable DOC site we’ve stayed at because of a complete lack of atmosphere – first prize going to the camp and sandflies at Upper Eglinton – but on the plus side it was just over the dunes from the beach AND it actually had hot showers for fifty cents!
Matata put us in good stead for a pleasant day of wandering, hitting the beach at Mt Manganui and killing time while we tried (unsuccessfully, unfortunately) to meet up with Alice, a friend of Rich’s family, while she was in port on a cruise. Bit of cider, far too much sun, a laugh at the cruise ship employees who seemed to multiply on the sand before our very eyes, and a bit of a body surf for Rich made for a good day!
Whew! And there’s the east coast/Bay of Plenty adventure. Next stop: Whitianga and another home to visit!
Grateful for: hot drinks in the morning on the beach
Total sunburns: 4.25 :(
