Monday 10-4-10, Just a Relaxing day
Brian's place was such a nice hostel we decided to stay one more day. It was nice to have a day off from driving. We had a nice run on the beach, a huge egg and potato breakfast and a hot shower. That is pretty much our day!
Tuesday 10-5-10 Losing faith in the DOC campgrounds.
The sun was shining as we left Tokomoaro Bay and headed south to Gisborne and Hawks bay. The drive was not very pretty. We drove through some clear cuts and lots of grazing land. Again the roads were crazy, but we had to deal with logging trucks. It was interesting that there were no runaway truck ramps on the curvy steep roads. It made me wonder how often they must change their brakes…Anyway we stopped along the road just before Gisborne and watch a surf competition. They looked pretty good, they waves were not very big but it was still cool to watch. In Gisborne we filled up with petrol and decided to drive to a smaller town Wairoa with a DOC site. Gisborne is a pretty good sized city, we drove by the place Captain Cook landed in 1769. Once out of town we were delayed by the road crew. They were laying the chip seal (what the roads are made of here, cheaper than asphalt, and from what I can see you get what you pay for!) We had some chip seal stick to some gear in the van, once we drove out of it she started to make an alarming sound. We pulled over twice, each time it stopped making the noise.
In Waiora we visited the I site. A lovely girl helped us, she was very excited we were there to visit her town. We asked how far the DOC was from town and if it was nice. She had not heard of this particular site. But knew the surrounding area so she told us it would be an 1.5hr drive. She also gave us directions to a mechanic so we could check out our girl.
Just like the other Kiwi's the mechanic gave her a listen immediately and diagnosed her with chip seal in her wheels. Luckily they come out we just have to drive back and forth for a bit. We did not have to pay him or schedule an appointment. It was so nice. He said this might happen again as this is chip seal season in NZ. I totally understood, with the amount of washout's they have to fix it will be a long season for them!
The drive to the DOC was looking at lots of Cows, sheep, turkey, and mean looking goats! We turn right off the main hwy and started along pasture land. This road went on forever! Once we finally get to the end of the gravel road there are two gates in front of us. The Gate to the right say's no trespassing and gate to the left say's DOC close gate behind you, wandering livestock. Ugh, this place is creepy!!! One, I don't want shit'n cows, or sheep by my camp, and two there were two trailers parked in a corner with scary no trespassing signs or else along side them. The grass was very tall and it looked like no one had camped there in some time. What to do? I have apparently seen to many horror movies. Those two trailers were just to darn creepy. It was getting late, and we don't want to drive on the roads at night so we decided to stay at the free horror movie setting campground. With our plan in place I set out with the binoculars to look for potential creepers hiding in the bushes, dead bodies in the river, and emergency evacuation exits just incase we have to run scramming! While I got to some high ground to see if the trailers were empty or not Paul discovered that we did not have cell reception. Now I will say this was not our ideal place to stay, but if we felt more than creeped out we would not have stayed (no worries mom and dad's) Have scouted the area with and feeling a bit silly for being paranoid we ate a nice spaghetti dinner. Since the grounds were not great we went straight into the van and read before bed.
Shabs checking out the surrounding area, planning escape routes, searching for dead bodies.
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