Opotiki to Napier - Opotiki a Napier

Our start to the day was a short visit to Historic Opotiki, a town of 8,000 inhabitants split equally between Maori and non Maori. A somewhat sad town but some there are trying to raise the profile of the town with a focus on some of its historical buildings, some of which are below:

Nous avons reste hier soir a Opotiki, une ville de 8,000 habitants avec 50% Maori, 50% non Maori.  Une ville un peu triste mais avec un focus sur les anciens batiments et une musee:




Our first stop on the route from Opotiki to Gisborne was at Tauranga Bridge, one of only two of this design in New Zealand:

Depuis Opotiki nous njus sommes arretes au Pont de Tauranga, un de seulement deux ponts de ce dessein en NZ.

The original bridge was built to provide access for pioneers to lands on the other side. Even though grass was shipped from Gisborne to provide a start to grazing up the valley, and cleared the trees, it was never successful.

Le pont originale etait construit pour donner acces pour les pioneers aux terrains a l'autre cote.  Meme que les graines etaient emmene depuis Gisborne, ca n'a pas ete une reussite.

 

In this area the forests were heavily populated with Pongas and our walk down to the bridge illustrates this:

Ici les forets sont pleins des Pongas, comme vu sur notre sentier au pont:

The route from Opotiki to Gisborne took us through a variety of terrain......first the gorge then hilly farmlands and finally closer to Gisborne very fertile fruit growing areas. This can be clearly seen in the photos below:

La route depuis Opotiki a Gisborne nous a emmene au travers une variete des terrains... d'abord le gorge, puis les collines et puis a Gisborne les fruits.

Gisborne our next stop is the most easterly city closest to the date line and thus is the city first to see the sun in the morning! It is also where Captain Cook first landed in New Zealand in 1769 and the spot is marked with a statue of him:

Gisborne est la ville la plus a l'est

The land  and particularly the white cliffs below was first seen by Nick Youngs the cabin boy on board Endevour and the cliffs are called ''Young Nicks Head''

Gisborne on to Wairoa and then to Napier was through the mountains, sadly through rain but it's a journey to be repeated as the views must be stunning

At Kates it was a quick turnaround and then off to ''The Factory'' for another birthday party for Dick...totally spoilt with a birthday cake made by June:



and an enjoyable evening was had by one and all!!