We started today by backtracking a little bit to a small river that Chris had spotted on the way to the campground last night. Just a few hundred yards off the main road, we found some rapids of a river that was coming down off the Tongariro range. Lots of boulders to jump around on (and risk ankle injury).
Then we headed briefly up into the mountain village, couldn’t get far, and headed back down and got on the road to Wellington. Stopped at some waterfalls along the way, lots of twisty, difficult driving as we pulled our way through the mountains.
Sharon found more meat-flavored potato chips at a convenience store.
We arrived at the Tasman Sea coast in a small city called Wanganui and headed straight for the beach. Despite appearing to be a real destination, with beachhouse showers and parking and everything, it was essentially deserted — perhaps because of the weird location (we had to drive through an industrial area to get there), perhaps because it was off-season and a Wednesday afternoon. Anyway, it was an incredible unspoiled beach (the first of many, we’re guessing) strewn with various natural detritus all over a sea of coarse black sand. We got into our bathing suits and ran into the water up to our shins … and bolted right back out, shocked from the cold. So then we just sat around in the sun and wind for a bit. Chris wandered up to the top of the dunes and took a few pictures of the surrounding neighborhoods and the bay and coastline in the distance.
Hit the road again, continuing towards Wellington. We arrived in a town named Porirura (basically a suburb north of Wellington) and pulled into Camp Elsdon. It’s a little family run holiday park on a hillside. They have several donkeys, lots of ducks, a sheep and a goat milling about and a cawing peacock. Also lots of campers playing frisbee and dogs romping. We got some takeaway fish and chips and settled in. Tomorrow on to Wellington.