Oh, the East Cape. Back into the wilderness.
Taupo and Rotorua were loads of fun and we loved exploring the wild champagne colored geysers, trying the a classic mineral bath soak and taking a few wet lake walks, but a few days of touristy action and we were ready for some more Northlands-style desolation.
We drove the entire Pacific Coast Highway, up through the gorgeous Marehako Bay where we were able to stay on an unbelievably beautiful spot of Maori owned land, down through Tolaga and its incredible historic wharf (the longest in the southern hemisphere at 660m!), into the lovely Gisbourne (otherwise known as Gizzy), which was the first part of NZ sighted by Cook’s expedition, and finally down to Hawke’s Bay and wineries galore.
We took it slow and the drive ended up taking us about a week. Most days we only spent a couple hours in the Nugget – Jesse was able to get in some good surf time and I rocketed through several books and enjoyed quite a few beach walks.
Our last night before we headed into Wellington, our last stop on the North Island, we camped on a tiny piece of Department of Conservation land in Tararua Forest Park. They allowed fires, so despite the fact that it was absolutely freezing outside Jesse set to building one and we managed to hunker down for a good couple hours, enjoying the heat and a last quiet night before a weekend in the big city.