Speeding around the Pacific Coast Highway I (Mar 6 - 7)

Woke up pretty excited as I was going to be starting a new trip. Laura, Leigh and Sohpie were off to Wellington that morning so I said my goodbyes to them, had a shower and a quick interweb/blog and John and I set off. We stopped in town at Pizza hut for lunch, I found out then that he wants to be an agricultural advisor (@David is that what Stuart does?) and he was here in New Zealand to travel a bit and work on vineyards (drink making is a passion of his as well as gardening). We weren't too sure what we wanted to do but we knew going through Napier to Gisbourne was a cool plan. Seen as Napier is wine country and Gisbourne is the first city in the world to get the sunrise.

So we set off South-East to Napier...in the rain obviously. We didn't have anything planned or have any idea of how long any of these journeys would take but we just kept our heads down and pushed on. This was a big change from the structured journey I had just finished with Janine and Lisa, but it was a good thing I went with them first. Being with them had increased my preparation and navigation skills, so I picked up the maps and was pretty much the navigator for this trip (ME...navigating...HA!).

*keep in mind it is raining throughout this entire journey*

We stopped at a nice water fall just outside of Taupo, and on the way the scenery was beautiful as usual (you really just need to come here and see for yourselves). Since John was a agriculture major, he was telling me some interesting facts about the trees and animals. He was also pretty amazed with everything, a bit too wiry for my taste but he was a good guy. He kept pointing at things and and blurting out names of birds and plants, it was pretty entertaining actually because the radio was broken so we had to keep up the conversation. This is where my speakers came in handy (Thanks Aunti O!).

After a few hours we were approaching Napier, as we got closer everywhere you looked was a vineyard, just rows and rows and rows of grapes. It was pretty impressive looking, they also had a few orchards and other crops in between. We went through Hawkes Bay, which was something that the Lonely Planet mentioned but, because of the rain it just looked like a rainy bay. Once we got into Napier (click here to see Napier history)we kinda just drove through and stopped a few look out points (overlooking the port [so much timber! John has pics]). It was a nice looking city, rebuilt after an earthquake in 1930s style. There was so much rain though we didn't really do much except have a coffee.

I should probably mention at this point that John drives a Prelude 2.2 litre vTech coupe (no idea what that means, but he told me)..and he likes to drive it fast. And the Pacific Coast Highway (the road we were on) is NOT the straightest road out there, so it was a fun ride. We continued on to Gisbourne, the original plan was to stay in Tokamaru Bay in a hostel called Brians Place about an hour away from Gisbourne. I could tell John was fading fast though, so I suggested we stop in Gisbourne and continue on the next day. (Sidenote: Before we got to Gisbourne it was raining SO HARD that we could barely see in front of us, and we came up to this one winding drop turn that looked like we were about to drive off a cliff. After that we looked at each other and were like "hmm..we should probably stop in Gisbourne tonight seen as it's like 9:30..").

We arrived at the Flying Nun Backpackers at around 10pm, which is a converted convent, kind of old and musty but nice enough and a very homey feel. This is when we met Kushla (or KUSH for short, HA!) the owner of the hostel...who I later found out is addicted to Valium, which explained a lot (kind of a space case, and short tempered). That night John and I met Christina (Berni) who is a primary school teacher from Germany.

*the rain had finally stopped now*

I can't remember when it happened but we decided to go around East Cape at some point and Berni was traveling around on her own and was looking for a ride up the east coast and to Coromandel. So she joined the crew that night pretty much, alcohol helps accepting lonely travelers on a whim. The next day John and I decided to stay another night, so we decided to take a walk around Gisbourne with Berni and and see some of the sites. On the ride into town the previous morning I noticed a BOND + BOND (place where I bought my second camera in Auckland) so I tried to get my camera replaced with no receipt or box... just the Olympia warranty...no dice. I then discovered an optometrists (only place that would have small enough tools..duh!) and thought I'd have a crack at taking it apart and cleaning it myself. The ladies in there were nice enough to let me use there tools and work bench, good story to tell I guess. After an hour of taking it apart and cleaning as much of the sand out as I could (and putting it back together...yea...I'm a camera technician now), the lens still wouldn't come out.

So...feeling defeated and having just wasted an hour of the good weather we were finally having, we all piled in the car and started to go around Gisbourne to see the monuments. We saw Young Nick Statue[pic] (Statue of Young Nick, James Cook's cabin boy, who first sighted land, Gisborne, North Island, New Zealand, Pacific), Captain JAMES Cook's Statue, a very nice look out point overlooking the sea and Gisbourne, Tolaga Bay (home of the longest wharf in the southern hemisphere, 660m =O). While there Berni lost her hat to the sea, there was a fairly small rain cloud floating around raining on random spots and a gust came before the rain and took her hat (Goodbye hat!).

After that we headed back to the hostel for some dinner (yellow belly flownder + salad + roast potatoes) and just chilled there after. The people staying there were very cool and they all loved it so much. There was mainly people from Argentina (they didn't even come together, they just all ended up there) on work holiday visas.

Unfortunately I didn't get to see a sunrise while in Gisbourne because of cloudiness/lazyness..but I saw a sunset on our way along the way. If you're ever in Gisbourne be sure to stay at the Flying Nun, very cool spot..it was very "surfer chill" if that makes sense. Off to East Cape in the morning!

Peace & Love