There was rain and high winds overnight during our last night at Pongaroa, leaving me feeling a little uneasy with the stand of large trees towering over our caravan. Luckily nothing untoward happened in the dead of night, and we awoke unscathed. The weather hadn't improved at all, and Farmer Paul who looks after the camp, called around to collect the fees. It was a 46km trip to our next stop, Akitio. Along the way we noticed a lot of damage to roads, edges crumbling away and many cones in place after a bad storm. Looks like there is a lot of repairs still to be done.
There was major work being done on a hill side adjacent to the road in one area, seems there must have been a huge slip there and work was being done to stabilize the hill face. There were two diggers hard at work, one down low and the other right up the top of the hill. I guess all the recent rain would not be helping with the hill work. The Stop-Go man wasn't standing out in the rain getting wet, instead he was tucked up nice and dry in the ute with his sign close to hand, and waved us on after getting radio instructions from the other end of the road works.
Hard at work in the rain
Driving over the long one-way bridge across the Akitio River we reached our destination.
Crossing the Akitio River
The area was originally dominated by two estates, the Marainanga Estate of 38,000 acres and the Akitio Estate of 50,000 acres. The region has been partitioned and subdivided over the years, with the Akitio Estate now at 9,000 acres is still the largest in the area. This is a sheep and beef farming district and the small town has a school, volunteer fire brigade, a motor camp and a freed camping area by the beach.
Welcome to Akitio
The weather was not kind to us during our stay here. The beach was on side, and we were parked across the road from the volunteer fire brigade. Luckily the siren did not go off during the middle of the night.
Akitio volunteer fire brigade
We found ourselves a site on the grassy freedom camping area, plenty of room here for our group. Water, rubbish bins and a toilet block was available.
Camping at the beach
Dave and Deb joined us here in their campervan, as well as Stuart, who arrived to join his wife Helen. We told Stuart how well Helen had been doing towing the van on her own, not something I personally would be able to do, I'm sure. The beach, just out our door, was covered in driftwood.
Akitio beach
Morning tea sheltering between the vans,
It was just one night here, so we packed up and set off again, to arrive at Te Paerahi Beach, Porangahau. We backtracked part of the way, and then continued on, driving over multiple roadworks, the result of Cyclone Gabrielle which caused such a lot of damage about 18 months ago.
Along the way we stopped at the site of "The longest Placename in New Zealand". There is a nice large area to pull off the road, and we discovered that self contained vans can stay stay for a night or two - we didn't know that.
That's a very long name indeed
The name translates to "The place where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, who slid, climbed and swallowed mountains, known as land eater, played his nose flute to his loved one". The story goes that Tamatea was so grieved over the loss of his brother that he stayed at the battle site for some days. Each morning he would sit on the hill and play a lament on his flute.
Te Paerahi Beach was another freedom camping area, not one we had stayed at before. A toilet block was available, plus a drinking fountain, but no tap water available to top up the vans. There were other vans there too, but still plenty of room for our seven vans.
The wide sandy beach was beautiful, and most of us strolled along it during our stay here. There were no piles of driftwood cluttering up this beach, unlike the previous one we stayed at.
Te Paerahi Beach, Pongaroa
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