February 5-7 Coromandel Peninsula
2/5 – We finally arrived at Oamaru Bay Tourist Park just before 4:00 – a little more than 6 hours after our departure this morning. We have a 2-bedroom beach chalet for the next two nights. It’s great to have the extra bedroom in our cottage to spread out. We were very hungry so, we mixed up some guacamole to eat with tortilla chips. It was pretty good! Tonight’s dinner is the baked chicken with vegetables that we made last night.
The area (peninsula) is really touristy (with Kiwis), but it feels like we are on a beach holiday just like a Kiwi family would be! It’s super fun to sit on our front porch and people watch. Also, there are loads of campers, roof top tents, boats, etc. of all varieties – home-made to high end. It is a fascinating parade!
2/6 – Happy Waitangi Day! Per Wikipedia, the day marks the anniversary of the initial signing – on 6 February 1840 – of the Treaty of Waitangi. The treaty was an agreement towards British sovereignty by representatives of the Crown and indigenous Māori chiefs, and so is regarded by many as the founding document of the nation. To celebrate, we did absolutely nothing! We didn’t drive anywhere at all, and it was blissful! We spent nearly the entire day on our front porch watching the world go by. We considered going for a drive out to the end of the peninsula at Port Jackson, but in the end, we decided that we need to balance the desire to see new destinations with enjoying the spot that you are in. So, we stayed “home”!
2/7 – We left Oamaru Bay around 9:15 and drove south on SH 25 (open once again) to Thames. After a brief stop for gas, we continued on to Whakatane, where we stocked up on groceries for the next three days. We got to our final destination around 3:30. Another long driving day, but we are here for three nights, so we can actually unpack!
February 7-10 Bay of Plenty
2/7 – We spent the first part of the evening sipping wine with cheese and crackers, and enjoying the ocean view from our deck. The property owners live right next door, but privacy is not an issue. The 1-bedroom house is a little bit older but nicely maintained, with a kitchen that is very well equipped, which is important to us since we cook so frequently. And the house is surrounded by absolutely gorgeous gardens containing flowers, trees, fruits, and vegetables. I have already been out to the vegetable garden to pick tomatoes (with the owners’ permission), which I used in guacamole – along with avocado and cilantro (called coriander here) that I bought at the Pak n Save Supermarket. The last course for this evening is baked chicken wings. Do we know how to live or what?!
2/8 We got a late start this morning, since we lazed around the house until almost noon. Our first stop was Hukutaia Domain “4.5 hectares of native bush remnant, featuring trees such as ancient puriri and mighty tawa, and many varies of ferns and fungi. It provides a glimpse of how the local area looked before cultivation of the land changed the landscape. It is also home to many endemic, native, and exotic birds” (credit: tourist brochure). However, the main attraction is the magnificent 2,000 year-old puriri tree, Taketakerau or the Burial Tree. The tree was used by Opokorehe (Maori tribe) as a place to store the bones of their distinguished dead. An award-winning book about the tree and its history, called the Millennium Tree, can be downloaded in audio format for free at https://bootsbooks.com/audio/.
Next, we went into the center of town to the Opotiki Museum. It was quite an eclectic collection of artifacts, including all types of farm implements and vehicles, a recreated barber shop, an old printing press, a dairy operation (complete with milking machine) and even a hospital ward from the 1950’s. On the upper floor, there were twelve “heritage room” displays that traced local history from the arrival of pioneers in the late 1880s to the 1930s. Interesting, to say the least. Yes, that is a stuffed Alaskan Brown Bear….in New Zealand!
We made a final stop at the grocery store and bought fish for dinner tonight. Once again, I raided the garden for tomatoes, rosemary, and basil to make a sauce for the fish. It was an amazing dinner!
Just a little more about the garden – we couldn’t believe how everything just flourishes, even the lettuce and other leaf vegetables that were grown from scattering seeds. And the rosemary was the largest I have ever seen – taller than me!
2/10 Once again, we were on the road this morning for the 5+ hour drive to Napier. Before going any further, however, we had to stop at the RRC (Resource Recovery Center) in Opotiki to dispose of our trash and recycle. This is the first place we have stayed that we have to remove all garbage, etc. Luckily, the whole process was pretty easy. We drove around to the back of the facility and entered through enormous garage doors (surely, made for trucks). There were two attendants and we explained that we were on holiday and had never used the RRC before. They were really helpful! The charge was NZD 3.50 for our single (small) bag of garbage; there was no charge for recycle, which was just 6 beer cans and a cardboard box, although I think we should have paid NZD 2.00.
After the RRC, we left Opotiki and stopped off at Tauranga Bridge over the Waioeka Gorge. Built in 1922, it is the only surviving harp suspension bridge remaining in New Zealand. It took only about 15 minutes to get down to the bridge from the car park. It was a nice walk through the forest; it was amazing how much cooler it got as we descended to the river. After snapping a few pics, we continued on State Highway 2 all the way to Napier, with only one quick bathroom break along the way. The roadway is under construction in numerous locations over the course of about 30 kilometers, and the road is one-way with stop lights on each end to control the flow of traffic. The issue is the slips; in one instance, the entire road had to be shifted 20 feet away from the cliff edge. It is sometimes scary! But it appears that a major construction project is underway – the east coast transport connection. The highway is closed four nights per week from 8:00 pm to 5:00 am. Fortunately, we were not traveling during those hours!
