Omana Regional Park to Rotorua
Before upping sticks & moving on, we enjoyed walking around the headland on which is the Regional Park. The site is old grassland kept short by the grazing of sheep. Part of the site houses a Maori Pa, in this instant a selection of earth mounds & banks set on the edge of the Park overlooking the Tamaki Straights.
Before leaving the Uk we had a list of contacts, friends together with friends of friends, so before hitting the road southwards it was a case of ringing Jim, who lives in Rotorua & a farming friend of another farming friend, to arrange a meet up the following morning. With this sorted, we left the park & headed along the North Road, southwards.
The route took us through the rural & somewhat equestrian orientated town of Clevedon then along the coast road of the Firth Of Thames. This was the first time that we had the roads to ourselves, we hardly saw another person let alone another vehicle. The countryside was hilly dotted here and there with clapperboard farmsteads, small fields of maize, some dairy and quite a few, what looked like, wild flocks of turkeys.
Our route to Rotorua took us onto Route 27, a long, straight, flat road bordered by drainage channels, the Waikato Plains. Fields of grass, maize & cereals flanked the highway, which after perhaps 20 minutes or so drove us to leave main road & head across towards Te Aroha by the aptly names Swamp Road.
Well, what a difference, the road wound its way along the base of the Kaimai Ranges, whose forest covered slopes reared up from the plains. Seeing a sign post to the Wairere Falls reminded us that it was about lunch time, so turning off the Old Te Aroha road we headed for the car park at the start of the walk or Tramp [as the locals call hiking]. Today, we hadn't seen any other hire vans or tourists & our lunch spot was just the same. We were the only ones there apart from the bus conversion [see below]. I should at this point say that many of the NZ motorhome club members [the red badge indicate membership] spend a lot of money, not on the latest German motorhome but in converting something large into their own, personalised camper. Most use the services of a specialist yacht fitter. Unfortunately, the owner of this one was away in the mountains so we didn't get the opportunity to have a nose.
As lunch time turned into early afternoon & with plates & tea cups packed away, we headed onwards on our journey. We did notice that there did seem to be rather a large number of dairy herds as opposed to sheep - more on this later.
The scenery passed through forests, along roads flanked by tree ferns, twisting streams & rivers, then back onto the main road system & the aptly named Thermal Explorer Highway which took us past the Agrodome Leisure Park to the shores of Lake Rotorua. We took the northern route around the aiming to stay at the Lake Rotoiti campsite situated right in the water's edge. Unfortunately the site when we arrived was packed to the gunnels & with only a couple of pitches left decided to try closer to Rotorua itself. We eventually pulled into the almost deserted All Seasons Top 10 holiday park which was on the final approach to Rotorua Airport. The site was clean, well maintained, the staff hilarious & the airport was not exactly Heathrow more like the Marie Celeste.
Today's mileage = 166 miles
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