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The most easterly......
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Back on the road again, we were heading for the East Cape. We had read that the area was remote with few tourists, and a heavy maori influence. We drove up to the Bay of Plenty and followed the coastal Highway 35 taking in gorgeous views out to sea with just-visible White Island in the distance. White Island is NZ most active volcano and steam can be seen rising from vents from the mainland, it is possible to land on the island and we would have loved to do it but again finance was a major factor. We did, however, stop at a macadamia nut farm where a white chocolate and macadamia nut cookie and hot chocolate helped us to get over our disappointment. Our journey to the most easterley point of NZ led us past some wonderfully carved maori meeting houses at the centre of small farming communities, we often wouldn't pass a car for miles, certainly there were no other campervans, and those we did pass would wave as they went by. It felt like we were in a secret place that noone else knew about. We got up early on our second day to get to the lighthouse by sunrise, unfortunately there was a lot of cloud and the sunrise wasn't particularly spectacular, which is a good job really as the sun was already up by the time we had got to the top!!
From here our journey continued south with more of the road being inland and through farmland, we did make stops at various beaches and lookouts, finally stopping in Gisborne, Poverty Bay for a proper break. It was here that Cook's cabin boy - Young Nick (Nicholas Young) first spotted NZ but was named Poverty Bay after there were skirmishes between Cook's men and the Maoris when they landed to replenish their stocks - they subsequently left with nothing. From here we drove around Hawke Bay towards Napier, the Art Deco city!
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