East Cape drive
Judith and I were now just heading off with no particular destination..and just seeing where we would end up...Our first night had us in Coramandel town staying at a small back packers...a quick trip for one beer ended up with us staying until closing time with a heap of locals and guests becoming new friends and drinking mates...
The next day we headed off again with a bit of a hangover and proceeded down the eastern side of the peninsula stopping at a variety of places to sample local cooking or to just chill out...
We ended up in Waihi for the night staying at the pub downtown...our room overlooked the main street and had a huge balcony that only had access if you climbed out the window...pretty romantic place actually...great chinese takeaway place across the road...
Heading East the next day we stopped at Mt Maunganui for brekky and Whakatane for lunch...we kept heading east looking for a place to stay...Finally we stopped at East Cape itself at a small place called Hicks Bay looking for a place to camp...the magic book of backpacker places Judith had said there was a place called Mels Place...we dropped in and asked a really nice bloke called Joe if they had room...the place is awesome...the view, the beach, the serenity...we got the big caravan which unlike Leigh had power, a fridge for keeping the beer cold and lights etc...what a nice place...cannot recommend this place enough...Joe was a gentleman and helped us out immensely...
The following day Joe asked me where I was from and after going thru my family tree he told me that I have a heap of relatives on the East Cape...btw that is Joe in the photo with Judith and me...we went for a drive around East Cape and ended up at a place called Eastender Horse Treks where the owner is a very distant relative of mine and his wife is Dutch...they get about everywhere...Judith and his wife rattled on in dutch yapping about what they had each been doing while I caught up with distant stories of my extended family...all in all this trip was amazing...
what started as a trip to just go driving opened me up to the Maori side of my family and reconnected me to the whanau (family)
posted by Rob&Judith @ 4:11 PM
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