“Let’s take a trip to Tora”, Robin suggested on Sunday. Might as well, the weather was cold and miserable. We were fed up with walking through the boggy conditions at the Motor Camp. A polar blast was travelling up the country, bringing freezing temperatures and hail storms. A run in the 4WD to the coast sounded just the thing this afternoon. Geoff and Eileen decided to join us as well, so off we set. We stopped to have a look at the Hau Nui Wind farm. The blades on the turbines spun around in the wind, generating electricity for the National Grid. Clearly a hail storm must have passed by recently, as hail stones were lying all over the ground.
From the turn off at Tutuamuri the road became one lane only and unsealed as it wound its way down to the coast. Luckily there was not a great deal of traffic to contend with. The Tora coastline is wild, rough and rocky at the best of times, and in the middle of such bad weather is was particularly rough. Huge breakers pounded the rocky coastline and debris covered the road in places.
We spotted part of a long ago shipwreck in the surf, which we were told was the Cleopatra. The bow, boiler and stern are still quite recognisable and must all attached together under the water line.
Tora is well known as a fishing village and there is a small population living there, as well as some weekend holiday homes. However, the population is set to increase as we noticed that there is a new subdivision offering sections for sale. Guess only hardy souls would want to live here, in this wild, windswept place. Don’t think the wind stops blowing even in summer time.
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