What I remember from my younger days of the drive from Taupo to Rotorua is the large swaths of pine forest, but today most of the pines have been harvested and the land is now used for farming. Given the state of our planet, does it make sense to cut down trees (which remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere) and replace them with cows (which produce greenhouses gases)? I don't think so.
Rotorua is still very touristy and sulphurous smelling due to all of the thermal activity, so we had a coffee, a walk through downtown, and then hit the road to Whakatane.
With most of the afternoon available, we decided to do a local walk, but I did not realize that in the first twenty minutes we would climb the equivalent of 44 flights of stairs. But at least the views were good.
The path was all in native bush so at least we were not roasting in the sun. In all we walked for two hours and climbed 62 flights of stairs (or their equivalent).
My trusty step counter had to be replaced a few weeks ago as it was counting fewer and fewer steps. Being a techno geek I bought a fancy unit with built-in accelerometer and altimeter which tells me height climbed as well as distance walked. It also tracks sleep patterns and displays all of the information in an app on my iPad. How cool is that?
With all the hype in the media regarding tropical cyclone Lusi we (Marlene) were becoming increasingly concerned with the weather for our drive to Hicks Bay on Saturday. But when we awoke on Saturday morning it was calm and dry so we set off for Hicks Bay.
Hicks Bay was chosen not because it is a great destination, but because it is about halfway around the East Cape road from Whakatane to Gisborne, a road that I had never driven and needed to cross it off the list.
The road is narrow and windy, with lots of sheer drop offs to the ocean below, so is a slow and tiring drive. We stopped at Te Kaha for a coffee and after joking with the staff about the lack of Lusi, we chatted for a long while with the bar manager about why New Zealand is a showcase for other countries in the handling of native rights. Life moves a little slower "out East" and everyone has time to chat. We learned not only about the businesses and skills training that his tribe has undertaken but also some new solar power technology that makes being off the grid a lot more affordable.
Between Te Kaha and Hicks Bay we encountered some rain and a little wind, but nothing compared to the storms we encountered in Wellington earlier in the month.
As we sit having breakfast, in the first place in the world to see the sunrise (due to proximity to the international date line), the cloud is low, there is a little wind, but it is not raining and the sun is trying to break through. So Lusi was not much of a storm in these parts.
Hopefully we can get out and enjoy the day.
No comments:
Post a Comment