This was a much further drive than we had thought, the drive North was fine; but heading along the Northern facing coastline was really hard full of twist and turns. Saying that it was a hard drive does take into account that we were stopping off at a few places to check out the huge coast line along this route. The first and main stop off was our detour to the Easterly point of mainland NZ, the East Cape Lighthouse; we’ve done the most Southern and Western points of mainland NZ so why not the others. The drive from the main route 35 to the east cape wasn’t too bad, some gravel track road but still good enough; the warning sign on the side of the entrance road was a little un-nerving to start with. With the bug parked up we headed up the 700 ish wooden steps that take you from someone’s private garden up to the Lighthouse, the views were as we expected; Pacific Ocean everywhere but well worth the ‘walk’ up. We stopped off to have our packed lunch overlooking a beach which the local Cows seemed to enjoy, the Mothers all standing on the dunes watching their Calves having either loads of fun running in the sand or just lazing around in the surf; very strange thing to watch while eating your sandwiches. We headed out onto the remainder of this drive, the worst bit to date on the North Island; twist and turns with no chance of getting any good speed up to make the journey pass a little faster. We pulled into a couple of short detours to look at the Surf, purely to see if it was worth the drive back up from Opotiki if they were any good. Whilst Hicks Bay was looking a good bet to return, it soon became apparent that after this drive down to Opotiki we would not be returning this far back for the Surf (sorry Em’) We arrived at Opotiki, with Andy absolutely ‘knackered’ and Em’ trying to stay awake after her early wake up calls from the recent sunrises. As soon as we arrived at our ‘home’ for the next 3 nights we were so happy at our choice of hostel, ‘The Beach house’ and what a hostel it was! Totally on the beach, the sand dunes are the start of its garden; even had a track through them in order for you to take the ‘free of charge’ sea Kayaks and body boards down to the 6 km long Waitahi beach.
