A local adventure

Labor day in the US is the unofficial end of summer. In NZ, it is the unofficial start of summer. The last Monday of October is New Zealand’s labor day so we had a three day weekend to enjoy. The weather being temperamental as usual for this time of year, only one of the 3 days was predicted to be sunny. So I decided to make the most of it and planned a day trip to some local spots which I had not yet had the opportunity to explore (the joy of having my own car is I can up and go when and where I want, yay!). I did not plan a terribly long day as I had wanted a bit of a sleep-in, and had to be back in time for the long-awaited Mexican night with my Japanese friends, but I was armed with a picnic, camera, and enthusiasm and off I went down SHWY 3.

First stop was the Mt. Damper Falls. Several times I’ve seen the sign as I passed the turn-off and since it said it was only 27k down the road, I figured it would be a fun little detour off the highway. I forgot however, that 27k (about 17 miles) on a New Zealand is not the breezy drive that you would find on say a straight and flat Kansas highway. It took over half an hour to drive all the way to the falls (you can go 100k in an hour on a non-windy flat-ish road). The lovely scenic drive started out a nice paved two lane highway alongside a river that had lots of whitebait fishers on it. After a while it got narrow, then turned to gravel with a gorge on one side and a massive rocky cliff face on the other. It turned back to blacktop just in time to go up the windy road to the top of Mt. Damper. Once you reached the top, you parked and walked through a pasture full of sheep, then through a woodland trail until you suddenly popped out into the sunshine and saw the waterfall (only a 10-15 minute walk). The view was definitely worth the drive, I’d happily return at some stage. It was definitely one of those trips where the journey was as exciting as the destination, as you never knew what the next corner would bring.

Once my car had found its way back to the highway, we headed for Mokau. Mokau is a lovely little seaside town just past the Taranaki-Waikato line. There is not a lot to do there, but there is a nice beach where I wanted to enjoy the picnic. It was a bit windy, but it was sunny and warm and I nearly fell asleep, which was just lovely J

 After packing up the leftovers from lunch, it was time to mosey towards home (as lunch did not really happen until around 2pm), but had one more stop planned along the way. There is a rock formation called “The Three Sisters” that I had not been able to see yet, as you can only reach the site when the tide is out. It is just around the corner from Mokau, at Tongaporutu. After parking at the beach, you walk down the coast a bit past some caves until you emerge in a lovely spot where you can see Elephant and the Sisters. Right now there are only 2 as one has broken off, but in time, another will emerge from the cliffs due to erosion of wind and sea. Due to the changing tides, there was not a lot of time to spend exploring, but had a chance to enjoy walking among the rock formations and taking lots of pictures J