Monday 17th March - Napier to Mahai Beach

The cyclone is now out of the way and the tv was full of "did we overplay it?" chat. The forecast now is for hot and dry and as we are so far north now, that meant a high of 28C today.

We drove along route 2 gradually making our Northwards quest. Yesterday had not seen the opportunity for many stops, despite great dramatic views as we drove. Today we wanted to lower the pace but when driving it is always so easy to go through places rather than stop at them. We had looked up the route on 'great kiwi road trips.com' and it all sounded fantastic. We soon found ourselves bashing in the miles and when we did our first planned stop the viewpoint was closed due to logging activities.

We stopped at a cafe just before Waihua, Catherine had no pockets, so put the car keys in my shirt breast pocket. As we left we had a mad panic "where are the car keys" I emptied my pockets we searched the cafe. Ten minutes later I tapped my breast pocket! We are both getting really tired now, it's time for home.

We got to a turn off to the Mahia Peninsula and as we wanted to take things slow we decided to drive to the headland. At once the scenery was spectacular!! Limestone scenery like the peak district but with perfect blue skies and a torquise sea! No cars were behind us as usual so we went slow enjoying every new outlook. Fantastic beaches and roads following steep sided limestone dales. The road twisted and turned and dived high and low, one thing about a car you can just sit back whilst the engine does the hard work!

Eventually we got to a campsite. This area was so lovely and the lost keys incident proved we needed some down time. So we called in at a campsite and got a cabin at just gone midday! 

We spent the afternoon walking along the beach, which was vast and we had it all to ourselves. Then we spotted a landrover on the beach and it stopped near what we thought was a rock. When we got nearer we realised that it was a dead whale. The Department of Conservation guy said that they had tried to re float the whale the previous day but without success. It had been with a pup which was now nowhere to be seen. They have no idea why, but this beach gets about forty whales grounding per year which makes it one of the largest whale grounding beaches in the world. Mauri tribes believe a spell was put on the beach to provide plentiful whale meat in the past. The dead whale had had a Mauri blessing so it was then tied to the back of the DOC vehicle and dragged along the beach and away ready for burial. If we had been here yesterday we would have see the efforts to refloat the whale.

In the afternoon we followed the track to the end of the headland. Wow what views!

Near here, we saw a bird flying from fence post to fence post in front of us. It was a kingfisher and we stopped the car and watched it for ages sitting in a tree. Too far away for a good photo though!

We managed to find a remote bush walk which had a signpost to a viewpoint.  The walk was through really thick bush and we never found the viewpoint but enjoyed this unique stroll.