To Napier

Beautiful black swan in Te Urewera National Park

Over the last 2 days we traveled down the southeast coast of the North Island from Gisborne to Napier. Along the way we went up a narrow gravel road with many sharp turns into Te Urewera National Park which is the largest of 4 National Parks on the North Island (there are also 10 National Parks on the South Island). The name ‘Te Urewera’ comes from the tale of a Maori chief who died after rolling over in his sleep while lying too close to a camp fire. We camped close by the scenic Lake Waikaremoana where we had our first really cool night with the temperature dropping into the 30F’s. In the morning we enjoyed seeing black swans and their signets. Most of the New Zealand National Parks are largely wilderness areas and this one is no exception. Numerous tracks (trails) are available for tramping (hiking) and at least 2 tramping clubs were setting out on for a walk in the woods.

Napier and its neighboring city of Hastings were almost destroyed in 1931 by an earthquake (7.9 on the Richter scale). The cities have been rebuilt and many of the buildings in Napier were built in the Art Deco style (pastel colours, bold lines, and elaborate motifs). Much of the city is built on a bluff with a great view of the harbour and city from the top of the bluff.

This weekend, New Zealand also had an election (voting on Saturday) and they also voted for a change in the party that was in power for the last 9 years. They, however, elected the conservative National party.

We have now covered 2,200 kilometers (1,375 miles) on our trek around the North Island. I (Jan) am doing all of the driving so far. Even after 10 days of driving I have to keep reminding myself of which side to drive on. When I made a U-turn yesterday on an isolated road I drove in the wrong lane a very short distance and after turning off realized that the turn didn’t feel right.

A pair of black swans with their signets. Note that the signets are born snow white and gradually darken until they are black as adults



A view of part of Lake Waikaremoana

A beautiful red flowering (tree or bush). Don’t know the name of it yet.

One of the art deco buildings in Napier

Onward to Gisborne (with a "slight" hiccup)

Sunrise at the East Cape lighthouse with East Island to the left. Originally the lighthouse was on this island.

At 5 AM I (Jan) got up to go back up to the East Cape lighthouse to watch the sunrise. As I was ready to leave, the camper security system clicker would not work – so I climbed out the window so I would not set the alarm off. I hurried up to the top and sat along with 10 other people at the lighthouse in complete silence as we watched the fantastic sunrise unfold. This was really a special moment since this is where the first light of a new day strikes New Zealand and the first lighthouse in the world (Note: The International Dateline is close by). This was truly one of those magical moments with which I have been blessed.

After coming back down to the camper, reality set in. How were we going to get the camper started since we had to turn off the security system via the clicker first? The clicker had gotten wet and even after taking it apart and drying it, it would not work. In trying many things, I then set off the alarm & had to disconnect the battery. So, here we were 20 miles from the nearest small town with a disabled vehicle and no phone. I started walking to the nearest house and no one was there. At the 3rd house (about a kilometer away) I lucked out and a friendly farmer let me use his phone. I called Kendrick Mitchell (the camper’s owner) & what luck – he had a code to disable the security system by turning the key on and off a number of times and watching how many times the little red light blinked. After hanging up, the very helpful farmer even offered to drive me back to the camper. The code worked and we were on our way! Some angel must be watching over us. Even during breakfast before we left, we were blessed with the undulating flute-like chorusing of 3 White-backed Magpie males (of course they were camera shy and we didn’t get a picture of them).

We headed down the coastline to Gisborne (about 190 kilometers away) on our way to Wellington and to the South Island next week. It was a beautiful day, the scenery was great, the trip was uneventful once we left East Cape, and we ended up in a holiday park right next to a beautiful beach on the Pacific Ocean. What an end to a truly ‘up’ and then ‘down’ and then ‘up’ day.

Mountains on the way to Gisborne


It was a big day at school in Te Araroa – The annual Sports Day.

A beautiful view of the coastline near Gisborne

The largest Pohutukawa Tree [Te Waha-O-Rerekohu] – Over 350 years old – In Te Araroa. At Christmastime this tree displays brilliant red flowers – and is called the Christmas tree.

At first glance they look like penguins, but they are really Pied Shags.

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.

We left the Coromandel Peninsula and drove to Whakatane on our way to the easternmost tip of New Zealand. Enroute we passed thru Paeroa where the “World Famous in New Zealand” L & P (Lemon & Paeroa spring water) soft drink was created. Then we drove thru the center of the kiwifruit industry. Originally kiwifruit was called Chinese gooseberries but they didn’t sell very well – so the name was changed.

In our previous travels in Canada visited the town of Chemainus (famous for all of the murals painted on the sides of buildings) on Vancouver Island. Today, when coming into Katikati we noticed that this city was billed as ‘Mural City’. When enquiring at the visitor centre about the murals we found out that Katikati got the idea from someone that had visited Chemainus. Of course we got a booklet which listed all of the mural locations and took photos of most of them.

Here are some of the highway slogans we have seen:
- Crash At Your Mate’s Pad - Not Here
- Too Fast – Lose Your Wheels
- Too Fast Today – Dead Slow Tomorrow
- Alcohol + Speed – Dead Ahead
- Driving Tired – Driving Drunk – No Difference
- Power Naps Refresh

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New Zealand words for the day:
Jandels: Flip Flops
Knackered or Clapped Out: Worn out
Westerly: West winds
Windscreen: Windshield
Tailbacks: Traffic jams

Pukeko with prominent royal blue feathering (also known as purple swamphens).

“Overload” mural in Katikati. Here we see Les Hume’s record load as he piled people in at Athenree to help them get to Waihi.

Owharoa Falls in Karangahake Gorge

Makes us feel right at home. We would have liked to see if the food tasted Texan but it was in the middle of the afternoon.

Back Down Thru Auckland

A people ferry passing the neat Bean Rock lighthouse in Auckland harbour

Today we visited 2 museums and drove down thru Auckland out to the Coromandel Peninsula. The museum in Dargaville featured the process of kauri tree gum digging and the lives of the gum diggers – mainly Dalmatians (Yugoslavian people). Included were displays of numerous accordions. The excellent Kauri Museum in Matakohe had everything you ever wanted to know about the kauri tree. Featured were finely crafted furniture made from the kauri tree, polished kauri gum (dried sap), a kauri tree sawmill, and hundreds of photographs from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. As an added bonus for Cathy, they were having a quilt show with dozens of quilts and quilted items on display. I tried to keep Cathy out of this display area but she insisted and spent time taking photos of each and every item.

Then it was time to go down into the center of Auckland to get photos of 2 lighthouses in the harbour. It was much easier to drive this time in the city than when I was first learning to drive on the left side of the road. Auckland is unique in that it has harbours on both sides of the city and is known as the city of sails since it has the greatest concentration of boats per capita in the world. Having been built on a dormant field of nearly 50 volcanoes this city also has the largest Polynesian population in the world.

Display of polished kauri tree gum


A commode made from kauri wood that appeared in the daytime to be a fine chest of drawers


The popular game of bowling being played on one of the bowling fields in Dargaville

Tane Mahuta

Tane Mahuta – the largest kauri tree. The tree is estimated to be about 2,000 years old. It is 51.5 meters (168 ft) tall and the trunk girth is 13.8 Meters (45 ft). In Maori Cosmology, Tane is the son of Ranginui the sky father and Papatuanuku the earth mother. Tane tore his parents apart, breaking their primal embrace, to bring light, space, and air and allowing life to flourish.

Today, in the rain, we started traveling down the upper west coast and after a ferry ride came to the Waipou Forest where a few of the remaining Kauri trees stand tall. These magnificent huge trees (not quite as big as the giant sequoias) originally covered a large part of the north part of the North Island, but most of them were cut down to be used for the masts of large sailing vessels and for buildings. Their gum (sap) was also used to make excellent varnishes and adhesives. In order to get the gum, holes were dug to get at the roots and the people who did this were called gum diggers. In the early 1900’s, the Waipou forest was set aside and protected after a public outcry (which was the first action in the early conservation movement).
Most of names of the communities and places here originate from the Maori. With the very different spelling and pronunciation, it makes it very interesting in trying to type names correctly and enter them into our GPS system. Maybe if we stayed here a very long time we would get used to the names.

After 5 days on the road we have started to realize that this country is larger than we thought. With the roads being so winding and with very few straight roads, it takes much longer to get from one place to the next. We thought that 50 days would be more than enough to see everything we wanted to see on both islands, but now we are going to have to be more selective in what to stop and see. We now see why some people spend 6 months here.

Waves cascading over offshore sand bars at Arai Te Uru.

Lush green plants in the Waipou rain forest.

A red beaked gull. Notice the red beak, red feet, and red circle around the eye.

Cape Reinga

Cape Reinga Lighthouse

Today we made it to Cape Reinga in the far north of the North Island (most people think that this is the most northern point in New Zealand, but the true point is a few kilometers NE of here). The name Reinga comes from a Maori word meaning Underworld. This refers to the Maori belief that the cape is the point where the spirits of the dead enter the underworld. Cape Reinga is where the Tasman sea & the Pacific ocean collide and the tidal race here has caused many shipwrecks. This is one truly fantastic place with a neat lighthouse, a special tree, sand dunes, and a marvelous seashore. This was one of the must see places for us and it exceeded our expectations. After seeing the lighthouse (our first in New Zealand), we drove back down the peninsula to our night stop in Ahipara. We would have liked to have driven down Ninety Mile beach (actually only 60 miles long) for a real smooth drive back, but were prohibited since all campervans are banned by law. This was a long day for us as we covered over 350 kilometers (220 miles) with some rough gravel roads along the way to the lighthouse.

In Kerikeri we stopped to see Rainbow Falls, the Mission Station (the oldest building in New Zealand built in 1822), the Stone Store (the oldest stone building in New Zealand built in 1835), and the historic Anglican Church. New Zealand is famous for having millions of sheep and we managed to see many of these along the highways. The dairy business is now huge & thriving with millions of milk cows in the country now and, of course, we spotted some of these also.

One of the neat devices provided to us is the Kruse system. This is an audio system that is activated by our current position (latitude and longitude). As we drive along, we hear audio clips about the towns we are going thru. This includes historical info along with current info. Interspersed along the way are some of the legends of the native peoples. What a great way to learn about the country and alert us a places to see along the way that we would have missed.

The ancient pohutukawa tree that clings to the cliffs is the reinga, 'the place of leaping'. According to Maori folklore, the spirits of the dead leap off the headland and descend down the roots of the tree into the underworld to return to their traditional homeland of Hawaiiki. This tree is believed to be about 800 years and is said to have never blossomed.

A real cute lamb - one of the millions of sheep here

A Pied Shag (cormorant) spreading its wings to dry them