Teal Motor Lodge Gisborne

Well its official, I'm 23 and 4 days old, and that makes me officially an oap, according to Dale anyway. <br>So what did I do for my 23rd, well I spent it on 2 very small planes, the biggest of the 2 with 40 seats, the smaller with just 15! travelling from Taranaki to Gisborne in the east coast of the north island (see map). I arrived at around 10.30am nice and early, to be greeted with glorious sunshine, and for the first time could actually take off my cardigan. It was pretty hot ...

... amazing scenery which very much resembles ireland mixed with parts of the northeast. Later in the day while driving, we spotted a neatly planted a grove of perfetly planted pine trees in a cow pasture. Andy said "I have to run through that". So he pulled over the car and we got out to make it happen. We had to climb over a wire fence, traverse a hill, cross a stream, and chase a bull away just to enter the forest...but it was ...

Well the next part of my trip through New Zealand started off great as we traveled through the Coramandel Ranges in the very north of the North Island. Looking out of the window i saw some of the most stunning scenery i had ever seen in my life, the land is so green all i could think was this must have been how the whole of the earth looked when the dinosaurs were around! (I have no perception of time so we will stick to the dinosaur ...

Our second day of driving brought us up through the 'northern Wairarapa' region which blended, at some point I failed to notice, into 'southern Hawke's Bay'. While the tour book makes little mention of these areas and effectively says 'just drive through; you're not missing anything', there were a couple of attractions which warranted a stop. First was Mt. Bruce Wildlife Reserve, which is primarily dedicated to breeding endangered birds in captivity. It includes a trail of ...

... with Josh as this is where he lives. We went to his house and met his flatmates who were really nice. The people here in general are so friendly, they cant do enough for you which is nice to see. We are hoping to do a bit more surfing here, but there are wine tours and a cider tour so these may take president over surfing. We are hoping to go to the beach and chill out this afternoon, its a bit ovrcast at the mo, so just awaiting the suns arrival. Hope all is well back home. xxxxx

... on. So there are no feedlots. You walk into the local butcher shop and they are cutting up an obviously fresh hanging carcass behind the counter. The butcher comes around the counter covered in blood and meat bits and waits on you. Doesn't get much fresher than that. I always thought NZ lamb was overrated until having it in NZ. On the other hand sausage is terrible. They like to grind the meat into basically a fine powder then make it into sausage. Fresh local ...

... be a funky little surf town. They're always fun. Being slightly pessimistic, with this much hype, it could only let me down, right? Well it surpassed letting me down. In fact, I down right hated the place. I have never felt so uncomfortable during my travels than I did in this city; if you can even call it that. First of all, it was not a large city that I was lead to believe. It consisted of a street and a restaurant down by the ...

... in Opotiki, lots of toys for Mike, great food for us, then after dinner playground time. Playgrounds in NZ have to be seen to be believed. NZ does kids well, more on this another time. Saturday we went to a local fair. Like most things NZ, it was low key, small scale, and practical. A fairly good amount of concessions and kids rides for a small town fair. A big equestrian event was also part of it..Face painting is big here and the painters are really ...

... heavy bags (three carry on's, six of the largest suitcases with broken wheels that money can buy), a dog, and a three year old. Actually, only the three expensive Macy's suitcases that Melissa's mother insisted on buying us for Christmas had non-functional wheels. The junky Walmart suitcases worked just fine. After doing a Grapes of Wrath number the Taurus (I swear those scratches on the roof were there when we picked up the car, really!!!) and a long tearful goodbye ...

... did my best to ignore the uncomfortable silence ringing loudly in my ears. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed they were both staring at me intently. This started to spook me out and my overactive mind transported me away to redneck land. It slowly dawned on me that both of these guys looked like they'd recently escaped from a chain gang. One of them was small and skinny and sported a large moustache which hung lazily from a dozy looking face. He ...