From Napier we headed to the Te Urewera National Park. Unfortunately didnt have enough time to do the 4 day tramp there so opted for a couple of short ones as its supposed to be a beautiful area (surprise surprise). The drive was fine....hehe a real test for mine and Dains relationship though!! (Im the worst backseat driver ever i think, i did give him permission to thump me but he said no!) As we got closer to the National Park what they classed as a State highway became a gravel track! A new one on me! got to the camp ground to be told they had closed for the season so headed another 15km to the Department of Conservation camp which turned out to be better anyways.
We decided to go and see the giant Rata tree as it was short and we were tired!! My legs were killing as we headed uphill, weird after the Tongariro trek where i was running the tracks on the 3rd day! The Rata tree was really cool, 800-1000 years old and 13m round the base- incredible to look at. We climbed up into the middle of the tree where there was a hole to stand in! The tree was ridiculously sturdy, you could put all your weight on them and they didnt budge! Continued along the track into the unknown until we realsied we had forgotten to pick up cooking utensils at reception so had to turn back to camp before it closed. After we tried another trail but by this point we were starving. Got some amazing views of Lake Waikemoana which is huge and so gorgeous even on a cloudy day. A bad nights sleep followed as me and Dain squeezed into his one man tent (trying to save on cash) and heard so many freaky noises coming from the bush (the park is home to a lot of indigenous animals which iv never seen or heard before) therefore both us kept waking up going argh what was that!!! found out in the morning a lot of noise was from a pair of blooming ducks!!
Packed up the tent the next morning and drove to Ohnuto Caves where we followed a very confusing track which led us through caves and round them which was cool. We ended up coming back on ourselves then choosing a differnt direction due to bad signs and ended up 20mins down the road from where we had parked the car, haha. We took off to Gisborne to stock up for our trip to the East Cape!! Cant wait!
