A road trip along the seldom-explored east coast of New Zealand’s north island is full of beauty, and empty of tourists
My favourite experience in New Zealand was definitely a road trip along East Cape. Not because it was the prettiest place I visited in New Zealand, but because it was the perfect trifecta of a beautiful destination, good company, and no crowds. Heck, I don’t think we came across a single tourist in East Cape!
I reunited with Kate, my Saskatoonian friend who I had met while volunteering at a yoga retreat in Hamilton. It was her awesome idea to do a road trip together for my last week in New Zealand before I took off to Australia, and her last week in the north island before she went to the south island.
Kate had been working as a flower picker in Gisborne (a small city on the east coast of New Zealand’s north island), so I hopped on a bus to meet her there where we would begin our road trip.
My bus got in pretty late, so Kate’s boss was kind enough to let me stay over for the night so that we didn’t have to start our road trip after dark. We slept in a caravan, which was comfortably decked out with two beds for Kate and I. In the morning, we had breakfast with the “family” – Kate’s boss and his 14 flower-picking WWOOFers who all live in the same house – before setting off on our road trip.
We loaded up the car with all our stuff and began to drive north along the coastline. The first stop on our journey was this remote beach near Tikitiki.
The beach, with its black sand and scattering of driftwood, had an eerie quality. The waves were unbelievable!
The grey colours from the clouds and the setting sun, and the haze from the foggy weather made the entire scene look like an impressionistic painting.
It was quite cold and so we ended up cooking meals in the back of the car. Here’s Kate cooking up pasta sauce with dried herbs.
At night, Kate’s tiny hatchback transformed into our hotel suite. We would dump all our stuff in the front seats, then put down the back seat and lay a foam mattress on top. It was pretty comfy except for the fact that I was about an inch too tall to fit comfortable when I laid down, so I had to keep my legs slightly bent when I slept.
We woke up next morning to a beautiful sunrise!
It was too cold to go outside so we admired it from the car.
Even in the daylight, Tikitiki beach gave off a beautiful yet spooky feeling.
After a fill of breakfast – which we cooked up in the back of the car – we continued our journey north towards East Cape – the easternmost point in New Zealand and in the entire southern hemisphere.
We stopped at this rocky spot where I spotted an adorable seal and Kate explored a narrow crevice.
We got back into the car, and a few minutes later the paved road ended and we made our way along a dirt track towards East Cape. The raw scenery took our breaths away! Our only companions were the cows.
Every turn along the road exposed another beautiful vista, and gorgeous deserted beaches. In the distance we could spot the lighthouse on top of a hill marking the easternmost point in New Zealand: East Cape.
We hiked up a beautiful trail to the top of the hill to visit the lighthouse. It started to rain, but the views were still magnificent.
And then, we almost died.
Hiking back down the hill, we walked to our car to make some lunch. We had parked next to a field of free-ranging cows and bulls. I had set up our stove on top of a small table next to the passenger side with the car door wide open to shelter the flame from the wind. We were cooking and chatting, and watching this bull who we both agreed looked “mean”. A few minutes later, Mr. Bull – clearly offended by our conversation – decided to saunter over to our car and came right up to the passenger side where my door was wide open.
I panicked!
I couldn’t close the door because the table with the stove was blocking the way. The only thing I could think of in the moment was to kick the table away with my foot and close the door in a hurry. Thwunk! Kate’s beloved stove went flying as I pushed the table out of the way to quickly shut the door. Meanwhile Mr. Bull creeped closer to the car, then suddenly stopped. He gave us what seemed like a judging look, paused for a minute, then turned around and went about his leisurely day.
I would have taken photos if I hadn’t been scared for my life.
That night, we camped in this EXTREMELY CRAMPED campground. It was SO hard to find a spot to park our car. (tee hee)
The next morning we anticipated being the first people in the Southern Hemisphere to greet the sun. Much to our disappointment, the great golden disc remained veiled behind a curtain of thick fog.
Nevertheless, our time spent driving the coastal route towards East Cape was simply perfect.
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