Tauranga to Gisborne

Travel day. Very sad to leave the haven of the Cacti Cabin, but our next stop awaits.

It’s raining quite comprehensively today, so having a day on the road isn’t the worst thing. It’s a longish drive to Gisborne, so off we go.

We motor along for a bit until we see a stopping area. As we drive past we see it’s a wellington boot fence. Clearly this requires a U-turn which we do and park up. NZ likes its themed fences! We saw the shoe fence on our first trip here in 1999 ish and we’re hoping to see the bra fence on this visit (south), where I will leave a ‘deposit’.

So the wellies (loads of them) are pinned to the fence. Some are old, new, little, large and some have messages. It’s so quirky - who started this one and the craze generally?!

As we’re hanging around taking pics, a car pulls up with an older lady and her older rescue dog. Col starts chatting with her as I emerge from behind a convenient shrub (insert your own euphemism).

Lovely kiwi lady, and as often happens once we say where we’re from, she’s been to Poole, has toured the UK etc. She even remembered Poole Pottery!

Off we set again, with her words of caution ringing in our ears ‘the road to Gisborne is twisty….’
Oh joy, music to my ears (not). It sure was twisty and I felt distinctly 🤢 when we emerged into Gisborne.

We stopped for a late eggs Benedict lunch, then again to briefly take in the sight of a burnt out car - gulp - is Gisborne that rough 😳

One of the other things our boot fence friend said - there’d been a terrible cyclone in the region in early 2023 and the area was still in recovery, over a year down the line. We’d be likely to see the remnants even now.

After most of the day in the car, we finally arrived at our beach front apartment. It literally couldn’t have been more different from the cabin! By the ocean, spacious, modern - very polished - but a blank canvas in terms of personality compared to the cabin. The L shaped sofa is probably bigger than our lounge at home though 😁

Another microwave faut pas was revealed- we reckon this was even higher than the one in Sheila!!

As we cosied in for the night, the wind and rain howled outside, welcome to the East Coast!Read more