We were low on gas in the morning but decided not to go into town but to drive to the next town. Boy what a mistake! The yellow light came on and we kept on going. We felt relieved when we got to the next town but it turned out they didn’t have any gas, just diesel. Finally someone offered to follow us to the next town in case we ran out. We made it but it was sort of nerve racking. When we got to the town with the gas station we didn’t even recognize the gas station!
The towns along the east coast are quite run down. We thought that it might have to do with treaty settlements but it turns out to have more to do with economics. A lot of towns look like ghost towns. We had lunch in one like that where we met a dog who obviously had us pegged as a free meal. We called him Chuddley. He was rather unimpressed with the peach we offered but hung around for pats anyway. We spent some time trying to get a good bird shot and he spent that time chasing the bird away.
We stayed in Gisborn in a small motel right out of the ‘50’s. It had a bedroom, sitting room, kitchenette and bathroom. I love stainless steel counters.
We just didn’t feel like setting up the tent but it turned out to be a really good thing because it poured all night. The weather here is very changeable. One minute it’s sunny and the next it’s pouring but so far we’ve had pretty good luck.
There is lots of geothermal activity along the coast because it’s right on a fault line so the next day we stopped at Morere to have a dip. We paid our five dollars and walk in and the pool is munggy. The water was brown and there was a sign that said you shouldn’t put your head in the water in case you get meningitis. There was no way I was going to get into that pool. A lady who was in the pool saw my face and said we should walk up to the bathhouse so we thought we’d give it a try. Oh my, was it great! We walked through the forest with a small stream winding it’s way beside the path and the light shining through the fern trees for about ten minutes. We come to a small bathhouse and it has three stainless steel dipping pools, one hot, one warm and one cool. There was one other couple there and we chatted with them for a while. They were farmers who were taking a little holiday. When they left we had the place to ourselves and spent the time going from hot to cold. The hot was really hot and the cold was freezing! It couldn’t have been better.
Next stop: Napier. We stayed in a top ten campground and it had all the bells and whistles. A girl came over and told us we should get a new camping spot because they had that spot the night before and there was a big light on all night so we moved. I met a man who was in a wheel chair who was camping in a van. The top ten are wheelchair accessible. How cool is that? We went for a walk downtown and it was very pretty. Napier had an earthquake and most of it got rebuild during the 30’s so it’s very art deco. They were having a fair and there were lots of cars from the thirties being driven by men in spats with ladies in cloches sitting beside them. There we about 12 cars at our campground so we really didn’t have to go anywhere. When we got back to camp we even watched a little TV because we wanted to charge up our batteries.
In the morning we went back into town and went to Possum
Town
.
They sell things knitted from possum fur which is very soft. They had some dioramas set up to show possums. They try to make the possums look really evil. New Zealanders don’t like possums. They really don’t like them. People have told us they actually swerve to hit them when they are on the road. I can believe this because every few kilometres you see a squished possum. Possum
Town
said that there are 20 possums for every New Zealander. Possums are one of the many “introduced” species here that have really taken over leaving no room for the natural species. We saw lots of falcons but they are Australian. Possums are a protected species in Australia
but they don’t like rabbits, another introduced species that has reproduced to the nth degree.
We went into a Maori
Art
Gallery
and met a lady who told us she was Maori and Lakota. I asked how that came about. Apparently her entire tribe is mixed. Around the 1860’s a ship landed near where her tribe lived and it had some Lakota on it who decided to stay and marry into the Maori tribe. They have DNA evidence. We talked a long time letting other customers come and go. When we left she got up and came around the counter and told us she had a gift for us. It was a calendar that celebrates diversity and as we left she kissed us both. She was just so sweet.
We stayed another night and had a swim at the Ocean Spa right on the beach. At first we thought that it was private but Stephen went in and asked. It was a great way to end the day. After we walked along the waterfront and there we some young people doing fire dancing. It was pretty impressive. As we sat there watching I chatted to a young couple who we had met earlier in the day in the park. He was from Belgium
and she was from France
. Both of them had permits to work temporarily and were going apple picking in the morning.