Gisborne - Days 11-15

After the walk to Cook's Cove on Thursday, I was not looking forward to a long walk on Friday, but the forecast was for sunny and 27 C at the weekend, so we opted to do a longer walk on Friday and then have two easier days in the heat of the weekend.  Marlene chose the Otoko Walkway, about 50 Km from Gisborne on the road to Opotiki.

 

The walk was along part of a disused railway track, which was relatively flat (no steep sections) except for the descent to the river at the far end.  It was identified as 5 Km / 2.5 hours one way, but although it was a little longer than 10 Km, we managed to do the round trip in less than 3 hours, with a stop for lunch.  The track was through open farmland most of the way, and then we descended through bush to the Waihuka River, where we had lunch.  We walked through fields with sheep and cattle, opened and closed gates, climbed fences and stiles, and even forded the river at one point.  The sheep just ran down the track in front of us, being too stupid to run off the track and let us pass, but we had one altercation with a large group of young male cattle who did not want to leave the water trough to let us through, but they eventually stampeded away after several verbal threats and much frantic waving of arms.  We were happy to see the car when were done, as the last 3 Km had no shade at all and we were melting.

 

On Saturday we hit the Farmers' Market to stock up on fruit and veges for the week and then I had a somewhat quiet day in our apartment, catching up on some genealogical research, while Marlene wandered the streets looking for deals.  In the evening we did a long beach walk, once the heat was out of the sun.

 

Sunday was another quiet day, with another beach walk in the evening.

 

It had cooled a little by Monday, so we headed back to Eastwood Hill Arboretum as Marlene wanted to walk the green (longest) trail.  This walk took us to the lowest point on the property, and from there to the highest point on the property....no shortage of steps or flights of stairs climbed today. 

 

 

After a light lunch, and discovering that we were the only visitors to the arboretum, we walked the blue trail, just to say that we had done it, before returning to Gisborne.

 

Our landlord has been very generous with fruit this past week, giving us grapes, figs and two lots of fejoias, all grown locally by his relatives.  The fejoia (fee-joe-a) is similar in size and composition to a kiwifruit, is very high in vitamin C and potassium, and has a very unique taste....not unpleasant, but unique.  We have been enjoying them on our breakfast cereal for several days now.

 

Today we walked down the river into town, had a coffee, and walked back to where we had parked the car.  From there, Marlene walked around town and back to the apartment, while I drove home and napped.  The sky was very dark in the southern sky this evening when we walked at the beach, perhaps a harbinger of things to come, as there is rain forecast for our last few days in Gisborne....yeah, right!