We set off in the late morning to drive along the coast (East Cape), and the plan was to make it all the way to Whaketane (basically driving along the entire East Cape in a day, which was doable and not too rushed, John drives fast =) ). We drove up to Tokamaru Bay in Te Araroa, which was a beautiful town by the sea, and we saw Te Waha O Rerekohu, which is a 600 year old tree located in a school yard the oldest pohutukawa tree in the world (Sidenote: I put my hand on the tree to feel what something that old feels like and it shook my hand with help from the wind, which was a very humbling and kind of surreal experience). On our way up to Te Araroa we drove through the Raukumara ranges and by Mt. Hikurangi, which again was quite stunning.
About 21k from Te Areroa is the East Cape Light House, much like the Northland Light House in Cape Reinga but in the east! It's about 750 steps up so I got a nice work out there. We took some nice pictures at the top and ate lunch up there, it was probably the coolest place I've ever eaten lunch. We then kept heading up the coast to try and make it to Whakatane....we only made it as far as Opotiki, which is a very small town along the east coast, and we stayed at Central Oasis Backpackers. This was a very small hostel, it was actually a house built in the 1800s that was converted to a hostel. Only 2 rooms with about 10 beds, the owners were an old German couple who moved to New Zealand, got divorced, but still run the hostel together in shifts (week by week). I had a very nice sleep here because of the relaxed atmosphere, there were only 2 other people other than us staying there.
In the morning we had a nice breakfast of yogurt + fresh fruit (taken from peach and passion fruit trees outside of Flying Nun in Gisbourne. THANKS KUSH!) + toast (German Fact: they use the same word for bread and toast in German). After breakfast we set off to Mt. Maunganui through Ohope (quick stop at the beach), stopped at Kaohi look out (we could see White Island [smoking island], and some other islands) and then through Whakatane. We stopped in Taurunga (which is just beside Mt. Maunganui) for lunch at a pub. Tauranga is a really cool looking city by the water, kind of fancy very nice stores. Had a look at the rose garden and had a nice walk around the town. Probably a bit of a pricey place for travelers but a very nice vacation spot for those more monetarily endowed.
Continued on to Mt. Maunganui[pic], which is a suburb of Tauranga...when I say suburb I mean its a town with a HUGE MOUND at the end, very nice. The town itself was pretty cool as well, the houses looked very nice (all beach like, square with rounded roofs, and cool things like that). After checking in to our hostel (name escapes me at the moment), we went for a late night swim in sea, the water was so warm it was very relaxing (aside from the thunderous waves I was playing in) and there were also lots of crabs in the water trying to fight the waves.
This would be an amazing vacation spot. Highly recommended. If I wasn't traveling around New Zealand I would have stopped here for a few weeks just to chill.
Next morning we went up Mt. Maunganui, the view from the top was awesome. You could see the town and another beach on the other side. There was also a surf competition going on which looked cool from above (I have some nice pictures from here but I'll have to wait for John to get back to me =) ). It was John's last day with Berni and I because he had work on Monday and had to get down to near Wellington by Sunday.
After saying goodbye and thank you to John (SUPER nice guy by the way, glad I met him) Berni and I ate dinner and tried to figure out how we were going to get to Coromandel the next day. After some convincing, we decided to make a deal to hitchhike together to Coromandel Town in the morning. Met a few Canadians in the hostel that night (1 dude from Orangeville, 2 girls from Calgary, and 1 dude lived north of TO) so that was kinda cool.
Then off to bed...which way to Coromandel Town..........?......*sticks thumb out*
Peace & Love
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