Our mini tour of North Island

Our route

Well, we're back from our mini tour of North Island a little earlier than planned, although to say we had a plan when we set off is stretching the facts a bit far. We wanted to see all the major population centres on North Island which we hadn't yet seen, as well as a significant stretch of countryside (well, the bits bordering the highways at least), with the purpose of beginning to choose where we want to settle down and buy or build a house when Iain's job finishes in December.

Five days and nineteen hundred kilometres later (don't ask me to convert this into miles because I haven't got a clue!) and we're back. We have no more idea about where we'd like to live than before, but this isn't because we didn't find anywhere we liked. On the contrary, almost everywhere we visited we would be happy to make our home and can imagine living there! There are a few exceptions, but more of those later.


Day 1
Auckland to Gisborne

We'd already done the first part of the journey, from Auckland to Tauranga, on a previous trip. Once you reach the Bombay Hills (sort of the Watford Gap of Auckland) the landscape opens up and it's a very pleasant drive through rolling green farmland. We had planned on driving into Whakatane, the main town on the eastern Bay of Plenty, but we really needed to press on, and so didn't make the diversion. This was because we'd set out late morning, on a whim, when we'd originally intended to start our trip the next day.

We stopped briefly for a leg stretch and a photo stop at Opotiki at the very easternmost edge of the Bay of Plenty and took some photos on the beach. Here's one of the best ones.

Opotiki Beach

From Opotiki the road heads inland and cuts across a range of hills to Gisborne. The road twists and turns through a landscape which is particularly wild and rugged, with lots of native forest (called 'bush' here), and spectacular river gorges. We only saw a few other cars, even though it was a Saturday in the school holidays and we were travelling along State Highway 2, which is the equivalent of the M6! Unfortunately the sun set soon after we left Opotiki so we didn't get to see much of this wonderful place before it was dark. However, there's always an upside to everything, and the good thing about it getting dark at this point was that we got to experience the most spectacular night sky I have ever seen. The road really does go right through the middle of nowhere, and with no glare of light pollution, the stars stood out brilliantly against a totally black sky. The Moon was the most arresting sight. It was a thin crescent, but its light was so dazzling that the rest of the Moon's surface was also visible, and appeared to glow with a diffuse silver-grey light.

We arrived in Gisborne at about 7 pm, and rapidly began to wish we'd set off sooner, as it's not so easy assessing accommodation in the dark. We booked a motel room just out of town, which turned out to be rather cold and shabby, but on the positive side, it was immaculately clean (thank goodness!) and very cheap. We decided to spend the money we'd saved on accommodation on a nice meal, and so went for a drive around town looking for eating places. We found a really cool place with an odd name, The Works Cafe. It's a classy bistro-style restaurant owned by a local winery. It has a really cosy and relaxed atmosphere, friendly, efficient service and excellent food. We even got a seat next to the fire! A perfect end to a great day.

One of us will make another post tomorrow describing day 2 of our tour.