On to Napier and a shower!

December 12, 2011

On to Napier and a shower!

Day 7 Monday, November 7^th

Up by 6 AM, as has been our habit, early enough for a few sunrise pictures, a brief morning beach walk, and farewell to our beach campsite, and headed down to Gisborne, We spent several hours in Gisborne, stocking up at the Countdown grocery store ( a bigger store), and an hour of internet ($5/hour) at the Isite – to contact the kids, and quickly check e-mails for anything important, and change our ferry time to Friday. Then down to Napier, where we camped at a Holiday Park – not quite as nice as Coramandel, but it’s fine, and we get showers in the morning! No walk on the beach tonight – just too tired. Chicken wraps for dinner – Donna has whipped up some great meals in our campervan! NZ is a spectacular country, but food in general is expensive. Groceries are dramatically costlier than in the US, and likewise eating out – about twice as much. Lodging is also very expensive with most B&B’s going for $150/night on up ($200 - $250 is not uncommon). So our campervan has been a good way to go for us – and a very popular way to visit NZ. This is one day if we had to do it all over again, we would have headed back up to where we were last night, only driving through the gorge from Gisborne to Whakatane area (supposed to be a beautiful drive) and then heading to Mordor. The drive was fine, just not quite as spectacular south of Gisborne – and generally away from the coast. This area and the area around Gisborne is one of the wine regions, and lots of wineries and wine tours, but on this trip , we are focused on the natural beauty of the country – maybe next time, if there is a next time for NZ for us – just came up with another reason to have it be so. It’s all good.