Arriving at East Cape (Eastermost Point in New Zealand)

Te Ara Ki Te Rawhiti
“The Pathway To The Sunrise”
These carvings represent the history of Opotiki

We have arrived in a small parking lot at the start of the trail up to the East Cape Lighthouse. We are what they call ‘Free Camping’ since we are not staying in a Holiday park and do not have power etc. (we call this boondocking back home). Note: This update is being output a day late since we do not have Internet at this isolated location 20 kilometers down a gravel road from the nearest small community. After arriving about an hour before dark, Jan ‘had to’ climb up the more than 500 steps up to the lighthouse before nightfall (a true sign of a lighthouse addict).

We had started the day by soaking in a hot springs pool – even though the morning was cool. After packing up we headed out a coastal road which was very winding and hilly. The view along the ocean was really great and the best part was that in this area there was very little traffic. Along the way we stopped to take photos of a one lane bridge and then the camper would not start. Fortunately, some friendly New Zealanders stopped to give us a jump start and lend us a cell phone to call the owner of the campervan to see about getting a new battery (pronounce bat-tree). We started up and headed into Whakatane for the new battery and were on our way. We are cooking almost all of our meals in the campervan, but because of the delay with the battery, we decided to have lunch at Burger King.

East Cape Lighthouse at dusk

Typical cattle grazing paddock – note how green everything is due to the nearly daily showers

We have crossed well over 50 one lane bridges on our journeys and they are very common since they are much cheaper to build. Here is one that was at one time a shared railroad and traffic bridge, but currently used only for traffic.

<- One lane bridge sign. The larger arrow indicates who has the right-of-way. In this situation we would have the right-of-way.

-> Speed limit sign – The 100 kilometers per hour (62.5 miles per hour) seems to be the limit, although numerous times it is much slower due to curves.