Day 7: Napier - Waikaremoana

Another day at the office!

I'd already polished off breakfast, checked out, grabbed a flat white at the organic cafe and filled up with petrol before 8am this morning - not in any hurry, just inspired by a lovely morning and the knowledge that it was likely to rain soon.

Before leaving Napier I went up to the Bluff look out point, for a view over the port and the South Pacific Ocean.

The first part of today's drive was along the Pacific Coast highway towards Gisborne, not far from where Captain Cook first landed in the 1770s. I then took the inland road back to Wairoa, again through stunning landscape. The hills are rolling, the valleys steep, the fields are green and the sheep are plenty.

Despite the rain I still was spoiled for choice for the "panorama of the day".

I then stopped off at a little one house/one tavern village for a bite of lunch. One thing you can say about New Zealand - they love their pies!

Started up a conversation with the barman on the lines of "looks like boxing's popular around here" (the wall covered in posters gave it away). "Yeah, that guy Cameron is from round here." Turns out "Cameron" is a veteran heavyweight pro who won Commonwealth Games bronze back in the day. He's still fighting.

Thought I'd better stop at Wairoa for some food shopping on the way through. One thing I have noticed this last week is that supermarket retailing isn't exactly a national sport here. For those with the fortune of frequenting all 4, I'd give Fortnum & Mason a 10, your standard modern Tesco an 8, Supersol in Ronda a 4 and "Right price food shed" in Wairoa barely a 2 - only because they had some beer in the refrigerated section.

From Wairoa it was about an hour's drive up a beautiful valley, partly on gravel, to Waikaremoana and the Big Bush Holiday Park, today's destination. Got checked in to the backpackers accommodation and as I'm the first here I've bagged the single room.

The surroundings here are again stunningly beautiful.

So much so that a 2nd "panorama of the day" is perhaps allowed.

The Lake Waikaremoana Track is one of the Great NZ Walks - I think it takes about 4 days. Then north of here it apparently turns into rainforest - but we'll wait and see about that tomorrow.

Scrabble must be an interesting game here in NZ. Every place name seems to be just a random combination of W's, U's, K's and I's with a few other vowels thrown in for variety.

Turns out I'm the only person staying here tonight, apart from a couple from Israel who rested for a couple of hours after getting sea sick on the boat trip back from their 3 day trek.

So with the wind blowing a gale outside and after a good meal it's an early night here in Waikaremoana, just on the outskirts of the middle of nowhere.