Surf’s Up (But Oooof, is our Dollar Down)

What a treat to wake up and make your own fresh breakfast.  Fruit.  Granola.  Organic milk.  Eggs from the hens on the property.  Homemade bread and jam. 

 

After we ate too many calories for “the most important meal of the day” or, alternately, the one you can skip and it makes no difference, we drove south to a relatively remote beach on Hawke’s Bay called Waimarama.  Think Tofino with warmer water, better weather and fewer people.  So, I guess, not Tofino at all.  A beach.

The surf was up, and there were surfers out, but it was tame compared to the waves at Opunake on the other coast.  We had a spectacular walk in the sun, I waded in the water, which was warm and enticing, but the ambient temp was only about 21, and didn’t compel you to swim.

The drive there and back, and the walk, combined, took up the whole morning.  We returned to the pavilion for a light lunch.  Then we headed out again to the coast, closer to Havelock North.  The weather had changed a bit; the temp was warmer but clouds had rolled in.  The first beach we hit, near Napier, more northern, was a bit of a dud, mainly just longline fishing, so we doubled back to Haumoana Beach.  We didn’t know that this was at the estuary of a couple of rivers, and the rivers, over the centuries, had deposited huge amounts of shale, so it was a rock beach.  A little difficult to navigate; instead we walked several kms along the river bike path.  It’s criminal not to cycle here; hundreds of stand alone bike paths through all the most picturesque areas.

Driving back we passed the campgrounds for the contestants at the Horse of the Year event in Hastings.  Yes, another event with prizes for something most people don’t think about.  There were trucks, horse trailers and tents, one after the other.  Acres and acres.  And of course penned areas for the horses.  I would pop by to check it out except tickets are $105 a pop!  Here’s a promo pic for “an exceptional celebration of equestrian sport”!

For dinner we went to an Izakaya called Piku and had salad, kumara bites (kumara being the local word for sweet potatoes) and vegetable and meat yakitori.  Very good.

 

A not too late night back at the pavilion.