Tuiwood

It may not have the same pizazz at Hollywood, but Tuiwood is famous in it’s own right.  We stopped for the night at the Mangatainoka Reserve on the banks of the Mangataioka River, across the road from the “world famous in New Zealand” Tui Brewery.  Henry Wagstaff was so impressed by the water quality that he decided to build his brewery here.

Mangatainoka Reserve

Our group of four vans traveled down from Napier and settled in on the riverbank reserve.  It was a lovely sunny afternoon and hardy locals were having great fun jumping down from the bank into the river.

All settled in

With the iconic Tui Brewery (Robin’s beer of choice) just over the road, of course we walked over to indulge in a beverage for Happy Hour.  Even me, a non beer drinker, enjoyed a refreshing shandy on such a hot day.  We spent a very pleasant hour or so sipping on our cold drinks, and putting the world to rights.

This building is obviously the business side of the brewery, full of large tanks containing the various brews

A long line of vats

And of course, I had to take a short walk to get a snap of the famous Tui Tower, which often features in the ads.  Henry Wagstaff sold the business in  1903 to Henry Cowan, who developed the prize-winning East India Pale Ale. As the factory expanded, a seven-storey brew tower was built in 1931, so brewers could use gravity to turn malt into beer. Oddly, the builders forgot to put in a lift and stairs, a problem later rectified.  In 1969 the brewery was sold to Dominion Breweries, which expanded the business outside its traditional Wairarapa–Hawke’s Bay base. Tui’s humorous ‘Yeah right’ marketing campaign, started in the 1990s, has become a huge success. The tower is no longer used, but is a registered historic place.

Tui Tower

This was the last day of Pat and Thelma’s safari trip, and we left Tuiwood to join in with a weekend caravan rally.  So the traveling and fun is not quite over yet, we will return home on Sunday.

Erikson Road

Just a final note about Gentle Annie – extra research has told us that “Gentle Annie is a long uphill road or trail without a resting place”.  Not named after an Annie at all, local, well known or anonymous.  So now we know.

Our group has been enjoying several days staying at Erikson Road NZMCA camp in Napier.  This camp has room for 180 vans, mostly parked on grass with a small amount of hard standing, with lovely raised beds with shrubs separating each area.  Murray and Sue joined us, and Bill and Val arrived a day or two later.  Many thanks to Eileen and Geoff who shouted us all a delicious Red Velvet cup cake in the afternoon, to celebrate Eileen arriving on these shores 50 years ago.

Staying at Erikson Road Park, Napier

Laundry always needs doing while on holiday, so we found a laundromat and took our big bag of washing for a ride in the car.  One of the regulars recommended we brush down the filter tray on the dryer, makes it work much better, we were told.  Makes sense, as we all do this at home, don't we.

Housekeeping at the laundromat

Our Weber BBQ got a real work out on Sunday.  Robin cooked our traditional bacon and eggs for breakfast, then we had toasted sandwiches for lunch, that’s the first time we had cooked them on the BBQ.  Then for dinner we had BBQ belly pork in maple sauce, so yummy, with roast kumera.  With a couple of extra veggies cooked inside the van, it was a great meal indeed.

Dinner cooked on the Weber

It’s always great to catch up with my sister and her hubby when we are up that way, they have now moved into a rest home complex so there were forms to fill in, and a declaration to sign.

Kathleen and Dennis, with me as “piggy in the middle”

Not so much sight seeing took place in Napier, it all seemed to be getting out and about and eating out.  Lunch that day was at Silky Oak Chocolates.  As it was such a hot day we both ordered an Iced Chocolate, so rich and decadent!  And of course a few hand made chocolates came home with us too.  Guess these items aren’t on our keto diet, but goodness me, did they taste delicious!

Decadent lunch

We went out for a Fish and Chip dinner at Takitimu Fisheries, our first visit there.  Certainly a popular place, with patrons queuing up and the waiting time for orders extended to 40 minutes.

Takitumu Fisheries

It was a lovely evening so we took a drive around the coastline.  The marina was full of expensive looking boats, and there  were several trendy restaurants full with patrons enjoying dining with a sea view.  After all the Covid doom and gloom with hospitality venues, it was good to see these businesses booming again.

Peaceful evening at the waterfront

Geoff and Eileen departed on Tuesday morning and Robin gave him a hand hooking up as there wasn’t much room between their van and the one behind.   They will be joining us again on Friday evening.

Lending a helping hand

The weather in Napier was glorious, hot and sunny and temperatures about 25C most days.  Just right for a trip to the iconic Rush Munro’s Ice Creamery in Hastings, a much loved institution dating back to 1926. With plenty of flavours on offer, it was hard to choose.  We both took a while to ponder the many possibilities.

Mmm, what shall I have?

And this is what we came up with, two lovely ice-cream sundaes.  The big one for him and the smaller one for me, so delicious.

We enjoyed these outside under the shady trees.  There were family groups galore, all tucking in to their tasty ice-creams.  Such a nice way to spend the afternoon.  Our time here in Napier is coming to an end, it has been a lovely relaxing stay here at Erikson Road.

Turangi and Gentle Annie

Its wonderful how many new NZMCA camps are being developed recently.  We stopped for the night at the newly opened Turangi Park.  Formerly a Ministry of Works site, it is a huge area with plenty of room here for members.  On hard standing, so it is an all weather park, water and rubbish are both available, with a dump station pending.  We had a visit from the custodian’s wife, (she does all the work here, not her husband, she told us)  who was delivering the local papers, and she caught us up with all the news of this new park.

Just one night’s stay, then we headed off again in the morning, after the necessary stop at the dump station.  Our group of four vans had agreed to meet up at Waiouru for lunch, and what a long slow journey that was along the Desert Road, held up by several lots of road works.  At one stage we were stopped for about 15 minutes, cars snaking up the rise ahead of us, and many more behind.

At a standstill on the Desert Road

Eventually we pulled into the parking behind the Museum at Waiouru, always a good place to stop for lunch, and vans can also stay overnight free of charge if they wish.

Lunch time at Waiouru

And of course this is a great spot to take a snap of my favourite mountain, Mt Ruapehu.  There was just a few streaks of snow on the slopes, but it is summertime, after all.

Mt Ruapehu from the car park

Well fed and watered, we continued on the last part of our journey, to drive over the Taihape-Napier Road, Gentle Annie.  I did wonder how this road came to be named and Mr Google told me that the road takes it’s name from the descent from the Central Plateau into the Kaweka Forest.  Known historically as Gentle Annie, it is now  lot more gentle on travelers than it used to be.  Some years ago the road was full of sections of rough gravel, but these days the road is sealed all the way.  Terribly narrow and full of bends,  with many mountain ranges to climb up and over, motorists must take their time and drive carefully.  I never did find out if Gentle Annie was a real person.

Start of Gentle Annie

Along the way we passed the Erewhon homestead and farm, the name is “nowhere” spelt backwards, and takes it’s name from Samuel Butler’s book written in 1872.  It does seem to be situated in the middle of nowhere.  In the 1870s Erewhon Station carried 80,000 sheep.  The wool was taken to Napier by packhorses and mules, with a stockman in charge of each team of ten.  What a long slow trip that would have been.

Erewon Station

Our stop for the night was at the free parking site at Springvale Suspension Bridge.  We had to juggle around a bit to find a reasonably level spot each.  A lovely quiet place to spend the evening, but no cell phone or internet coverage out here in the middle of nowhere.

Springvale Suspension Bridge.

This beauty was christened Rangitikei River Bridge no 75 in 1926, and very few examples of this type of suspension bridge remain.  In 1970 the road was realigned and a new bridge built alongside the suspension bridge.  The replacement bridge is functional but very plain compared to it’s beautiful older neighbour.

After a frosty start to the morning we hooked up and continued driving along Gentle Annie towards our next destination of Napier.  The tree cover was a mixture of Pinus Radiata forests, and native trees.  As we finally dropped down into the more gentle land  near Fernhill, we passed by grapes and apple plantations, and hay bales neatly rolled in the paddocks. 

Pinus Radiata forests everywhere

Plans Change

We've always  said that Covid can change plans in an instance.  With three cases (in the same family) of the UK Covid variant in the Auckland community, our PM and the Health Department have sprung into action.  Auckland has now been placed on Alert Level 3, and the borders closed, and the rest of the country is now in Level 2.  Instead of moving on to Waiuku, south Auckland after our stay in Oparau, we headed south to Otorohanga instead, staying at the NZMCA site while we await further developments.  Potable water is now available here, which is so handy, they were working on the installation last time we visited.  We needed a good top up on arrival. 

Staying at Otorohanga

Otorohanga is a busy bustling place and the main street is decorated with pretty hanging baskets. 

A trip to “world famous in Otorohanga” Haddad’s shop was needed.  This establishment has been in town for decades, and sells all sorts of men’s clothing, there were shoes and boots,  clothes on hangers, and cartons everywhere, rather like an Aladdin's Cave, I thought.  Robin was in dire need of some new shorts, so the owner whisked out his tape measure to check the size.  “I wont tell you what that says”, he informed Robin, went to a big carton, and produced shorts in the required size.  They fit well and felt very comfortable, so why not buy two pair, I suggested.  So he did.  That should see him right over summer.

Shopping at Haddad’s

Also in the main street is the Sir Edmond Hillary Walkway.  Not as I expected, the life and times of Sir Ed, but rather looking at New Zealand in earlier years.  There were info boards of such things as Weetbix, touted as thee “breakfast of champions, school milk, I was brought up on that, All Blacks, sheep, Aunt Daisy, who can remember her on the radio?  Plus a new board, all about Covid.

Everything Kiwi in here

And you have to admit that the public toilets really say something about a town.  I was rather intrigued with the writing on the front of the toilet block.

Otorohanga toilet block

We took a trip up to Te Awamutu and our group of eight all ended up at the Central Café for lunch.  Lovely food, and the walls were decorated with stars from the past, including my favourite, Elvis.

Lunch at the Central Cafe

So we had three pleasant days in Otorohanga, waiting further news.  Wednesday at 4.30pm was the time for the next announcement, will the restrictions stay or will they be lifted?  It was announced that Auckland will drop down to Level 2 and the rest of New Zealand will be back on Level 1.  So in our group there were discussions held, and opinions aired.  The majority consensus was to head south, even though we could now travel to Auckland if we wanted.  Just in case Covid raised it’s ugly head again in the Auckland area, we wanted to be well away and moving on the homeward journey.  So tomorrow we are moving on and will be staying the night at the brand new NZMCA site in Turangi.  It will be great to check this new facility out.

Meanwhile, Gemma couldn’t care two hoots about all this drama going on in the country.  As long as she is well fed, and gets plenty of attention, she is happy.  Here she is, relaxing on the caravan vanity unit, almost falling off, it seems.  She is certainly well relaxed.

Te Anga and Oparau

It’s always exciting finding “new to us” places  to stay.  We had never heard of Te Anga, a small rural community along SH37, past the world famous Waitomo Caves.  Our hosts were young farmers who made us very welcome at their property Awamarino, meaning “beside still waters”.

Staying at Awamarino

For such a tiny place, there was certainly a lot to see and explore in the surrounding area.  First was the beautiful Marakopa Falls.  Walking through beautiful native bush we soon heard the sound of rushing water, and there it was, breathtakingly beautiful indeed.  The 35m high falls are often described as the most beautiful in the country, cascading as they do over the undercut greywacke basement rock.

Marakopa Falls

Although not a long walk by any means, the track took it’s toll on several of us with knee and back problems.  When did all this start to happen?  Here we are having a little sit down before resuming the uphill trek again.

Jenny, Pat, Frank, and Robin

While the others in our group were climbing umpteen steps to see some caves, rather too hard for us, we decided, we stopped off to visit the Mangapohue Natural Bridge.  This consists of two rock arches formed by the Mangapohue Stream in the Marokopa River valley near Waitomo, and the 17 m high limestone arches are a remnant of an ancient cave system.

Mangapohue Natural Bridge

Robin had heard about Tunnel Beach so that was the trip for the next day.  After driving up and over hills, along miles of gravel road, we finally arrived at our destination, Waikawau Beach.  The only access to the beach is through an 80m tunnel.  A couple of friendly locals took our photo at the tunnel entrance.

Tunnel Beach

The tunnel was dug through the sandstone cliffs in 1911 by three Works Department employees with picks and shovels.  It was made for driving cattle up the beach from Nukihatere Station on the hills above the tunnel and out to the road.  Now closed to vehicles, the tunnel is now used for pedestrian access to the beach.  Once through the tunnel, it is like stepping into another world, with the isolated black sand beach at the end.  A huge tree trunk had been washed up on the beach, we wondered where that had journeyed from.  Such a lovely place indeed.

Waikawau Beach

And just look at the state of the back window after driving along all that unsealed road.

The next day we moved on to stay at the Oparau Roadhouse.  This establishment boasts quite a collection of bikes attached to the fence, quite the drawcard for camera toting travelers we were told.  It took us a bit of time and trouble to get the vans into place at the top of the rise, but we finally managed.

Staying at the Oparau Roadhouse

From here we took a drive out to nearby Kawhia.  Being a lovely sunny day, lots of the local kids were enjoying themselves jumping off the bridge, just as we saw last time we visited.  Great to see kids enjoying themselves in the outdoors.

Kawhia Wharf

Back to camp for a well deserved ice-cream, followed by 4zees under the shady awning.  And of course, staying at The Roadhouse, we just had to have our evening meal there, didn't we!  The day was completed with an amazing sunset lighting up the sky, another great day in paradise.

Sunset at Oparau