Sunday dawned rather overcast and it looked very unlikely as light started to appear in the eastern sky that a rising sun out of the ocean,that we had hoped for,wasnt going to appear as we wanted.But there you go that is nature and lets face it the weather more than often doesnt always perform the way we want it to.
Still it was quite magical to lie in bed and watch the light in the sky change and at least it wasnt raining.
We didnt have far to travel today down to Gisborne,our next and last overnight stop before we head home to Tauranga, on this mini tour of the East Coast so lying in for a while when we had suggested to our hostess that brekkie at 8.30 would be just for fine for us and our travel plans.
And when brekkie arrived it was wholesome and topped off with a deliciously,tasty and hot omelette.There is something special about not having to prepare and lay out breakfast for ourselves.It sort of suggests that we were going to be waited on hand and foot for the rest of the day.Well,it doesnt usually turn out that way but it
Our hostess stayed and chatted between courses and we discovered she had a very colourful history although we guess that might have been expected for a lady of 80 years old.One might have thought that reaching 80 you would want to just look after yourself but hosting guests,many of whom had been overseas visitors up until COVID 19 came along seemed to be the tonic to keep her young.
Extracating the car from the tight parking spot alongside the part of the house we had as our apartment was never going to be an easy job and as I know Gretchen likes to do these things I left it to her and in the end she decided driving across the wet lawn was going to be the best bet and then straight up a driveway on the other side of the building to reach the gate.Shame we left some tyre marks on the grass but as Gretchen said it will soon be spring and new grass shoots will take care of the indents.
One thing that changed as we drove around towards the marae at the southern end of the bay was the impression that the small off shore island appeared closer to the shore than it was from our overnight accommodation.
It is little wonder that Captain Cook found a stop in the bay worthwhile,even if it was to find some shelter from the southerly wind,if that had been blowing at the time he sailed north up the coast from his first landing in Poverty Bay,aptly named as he didnt find the things he was looking for there,water and food etc, after the voyage from England.
We realised that we had missed driving the loop road to Waipiro Bay yesterday and so missed taking in the first picture theatre opened in New Zealand by the late Sir Bob Kerridge in the 1920s.And although we gave thought to driving back up the coast we decided we had been there before and paid tribute to one of those odd historical decisions to start the cinematic industry in a tiny seaside town far from the main centres.
joined Highway 35 again the river to the right of us reminded us of the very heavy rainfall from earlier this year that bought down huge amounts of timber from the steep hills to the west.There were still telltale signs of the level the Uawa River reached and the road surface was still dusty after many parts had been covered by floodwaters as the river broke its banks.One thing floods do in this part of the world is leave silt behind where paddocks flood and growth was lush and green.A great environment for the many new born lambs to start their lives.
Here is where the real damage of the floods was done with huge volumes of this timber scrap clogging up the beach to the point where the picture we saw on television after it had happened meant that trying to walk anywhere on this flat beach was all but impossible.
A great amount of work had been done in clearing the beach and from the northern end of the beach we looked south at pile after pile
every few metres of timber pushed up into piles several metres high.
Travelmates near
