Empty places

View of Wairoa

Breakfast on a hill, as is tradition

Everything hurts… What a perfect time for a spa! Fortunately there are tons around, just pick a road. After a breakfast on a hill (this has become a theme, I’m taking pictures each time now) I drove towards Gisborne. I went a bit of the road to check out Mahia beach. The water was quite muddy, but the views were fantastic and most importantly, it was completely empty. Like miles both ways empty. A beach all to myself! Sun time!

My beach!

A bit further down the road I stopped at Morere hot springs. This turned out to be an excellent choice – since it’s quite far away from the main thermal tourist tracks, the place was a bit run down, but almost completely empty. Actually, I was the first one there and had all the pools to myself for about an hour, and then only shared them periodically with various old people. Cold pool, hot pool, cold, even hotter pool, muddy pool, cold pool… Mmm… Perfect to soothe my back, sleeping in three car hasn’t exactly been helping it.

Vineyard behind a wall of nicely cut trees

Then Gisborne. To be honest, a pretty boring place, although it’s the site of captain Cook’s first landing in NZ. It seems to be good for two things: wine and wood. Everywhere around it vineyards (I had to go to one and buy some grapes – so sweet!) and woodstocks. I had my late lunch on a hill, had a swim in the sea (the waves were amazing – please tell my grandpa!) and drove off towards Rotorua. On the road I almost ran over what I think was an armadillo with a young, and a black cat-like animal. Fortunately I managed to avoid them. Various bugs aren’t so lucky and my car is developing an impressive cementary on the front. Since the road, as picturesque as it was, got boring after an hour or so, I decided that this is the perfect time to practice my Tibetan throat singing – I`m forbidden from doing it at home, but now, after all that practice I`m sure the ears of those deaf to the beauty of my chant will open and marvel.

Gisborne, hill over Cpt. Cooke’s landing

By the time I got to Opotiki it was already dark, so I decided to stay and sleep here. weirdly enough, although it was only 8.30pm, the town seemed completely empty. Except for the few teenagers who were fishing at the wharf and who pointed me to a nice quiet spot at a riverbank.

Before I go to sleep, another portion of assorted observations. There are all sorts of mountains in NZ. The grassy hills as in Scotland, the forested hills, the more rocky kind, the high peaks (although I hear that the south island has most of those) and the unique rainforest-covered ones. These last ones are most amazing because of their shape – many of their slopes don’t go down gradually, but descend very suddenly. Next to the road, the effect is amazing, because you get to drive between 60-90 degrees slopes, like between huge walls of green that open with every turn.

Driving gangam style

The road itself is good – although most of the NZ ‘highways’ are actually one-lane roads which narrow to single lane with every bridge, there is very little traffic, so not much more is needed. What’s important is that the roads are very well described, with difficult turns clearly marked with suggested speed. Also, I`m not interested in drunken driving, which, judging by the notices on the road, seems to be NZ national sport.

NZ has lots of public toilets, and the fact that there are so many beaches here rocks, because that means there are many free showers!