Gisborne YHA
Trip Start
Feb 28, 2006
1
10
18
Trip End
Apr 06, 2006
Gisborne, New Zealand
Thursday, March 9, 2006
Well I left Napier today to make my way to Gisborne. Gisborne is the next largest town on from Napier so makes using the intercity coaches a lot easier. Before leaving the UK I had thought of doing a 4 day lake walk up from a small town In Wairo. Due to the extra nights in Napier and Wellington I would end up running out of time for the rest of the trip so I decided to make my way straight through.
I had booked myself in to the YHA in Gisborne about 5 minutes walk from town on recommendation of some other backpackers I had met on my travels.
The journey to Gisborne was quite interesting there seems to be two different types of driver with the Intercity service a) A driver who is really helpful and gives a good commentry on the coach telling you about the area you are going through b) a driver who just seems to shove you on the coach and calls out your stop.
For a change we had the first type of driver, he gave good information of our journey through the mountains that took us through to Gisborne which makes the travelling seem to fly by. I'm sure this driver was on a little backhander as he seem to drive fairly fast to get to this small Cafe along the way where we stopped for 15 minutes, not a stop that was scheduled hmmmmmmmmmm. Ok it was good for a toilet stop and a some really nice ginger cake.
Ok I arrived in Gisborne and my first impression was that it was very quiet. Says in the Rough guide that the town is a surfers town, but there did not seem to be any sign of surf shops or surfers.
You could walk to the hostel quite easily but my feet seemed to be so sore from the walking in Wellington during the cycling that i just really couldn't be bothered and for the price of the local taxi it really wasn't worth the effort.
I arrived at the hostel and was greeted by Clive the owner, great guy who seems to have travelled most of the world had tons of storys to give out and loads of travelling tips.
The hostel was clean and tidy and not many people in my dorm which makes a change. I went for a walk later on down to Cooks Landing near the local harbour and took a few photos, the weather was overcast again so nothing fantastic to see.
The beaches around here have golden sands and great waves for the surfers but thats about it when you come to Gisborne although this is supposed tho be the most east point of the country to see the sun rise but having woken up the morning before at 5:45 i sure wasn't going to do it again.
Met a few Canadians in the evening who had plenty to chat about there travels across OZ and working in New Zealand.
Thats all for now
Richard
