Steam and scenery
Trip Start
Apr 01, 2006
1
28
68
Trip End
Jul 08, 2006
Kaitaia,
New Zealand
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
First was a Dept of Conservation short walk to a few lookouts over Rainbow Falls, which after the rain were really quite dramatic, with nothing less than a muddy brown torrent swirling and crashing over a drop of a few metres. It was impossible to judge the depth of the river, but there was clearly a lot of energy being dissipated. It remains to be seen whether the photos do it justice.
Next, we made our way to a steam-powered sawmill. It started 23 years ago, the sawmill as a side business to aid the family income and the steam, well, because they wanted to (although it also saved running power lines a kilometre off the main route). The whole installation is very thoroughly thought out, with the saw waste used to produce the steam, an ex-hospital genset producing electricity to power the saws, and pretty much all the heat from the steam used in drying wood, pre-heating the feed water and making hot water for tea and coffee.
We paid a visit to a confectionery factory, which was offering a few free samples but didn't offer the talk of the fudge factory in Christchurch and was rather more pricey.
After that, we went into the town centre where we found one of the worst internet cafes yet (slow connection, and very de-privileged) and bought petrol.
Finally before heading further up and across, we stopped at a transport museum which demonstrated a player piano, with an impressive pneumatic mechanism, but was otherwise unremarkable.
We diverted via Matauri Bay a little up the coast, giving Hannah plenty of practice at mountain roads with the Sunny (it's her first time driving an automatic gearbox), and saw some wonderful views - particularly there, but the scenery around here is generally pretty stunning, if not quite as awe-inspiring as the South Island.
Kaitaia, in the evening, is another of those small towns which shuts at about 5 pm. Not desperately inspiring, but tomorrow we're taking a coach tour to Cape Reinga (northern tip) via Ninety Mile Beach, which should be quite unique!
