East As trip

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Trip Start Feb 25, 2006 Previous
Entry Trip End Feb 25, 2007 Next
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  Gisborne, New Zealand
Saturday, April 1, 2006

Following on from my last update....I left Napier on the next Kiwi Experience bus (with the hangover from hell) and joined a new group and driver to head onto Gisborne. On the way we stopped off at a winery, bleurgh!! I couldn't really face any more wine tasting after the previous day so sipped water at the back of the group instead and pretended (lightweight that I am!). We stopped for lunch on the way too, but couldn't face food either so I watched everyone else eat their lunch instead!!

It was a long drive out to Gisborne, we covered about 300km during the day, but it was soooo worth spending the day on the bus. Gisborne is a popular place for surfing and is absolutely beautiful - a huge long beach with big rolling waves. We stayed in a surf chalet which was probably the nicest place I have stayed in so far - it was really modern, light and airy. I was lucky enough to be put in the only dorm at the front of the hostel with a huge window that looked out over the ocean. We didn't get there until late afternoon so we popped over the road to the beach and watched the surfers for a while, then headed back to the surf chalet where Jerry (the driver) and some girls from the bus had cooked up a huge spaghetti bolognese with garlic bread and coleslaw and we all sat round a huge table to eat, chat and get to know each other which was really great. Everyone on the bus was absolutely lovely, I was so incredibly lucky to get put with such a good group of people and a great driver.

I was suffering a little from the night before so I had a relatively early night, and the next morning some of us went over to sit on the beach and had a paddle, and again watched the surfers!! Some early starters had been up to watch the sunrise, since Gisborne is one of the first places in the world to see the sunrise, and others had gone for surfing lessons, but I decided to save my money and my energy for later on in the trip.

It would have been lovely to stay on a couple of nights in Gisborne as it was such a chilled out place, but I had met some really nice people on the bus and decided to stay on the trip with them - as we have been discussing over the past few days, it is usually the people you are with that shape your trip , so I thought it wise to stick with the bunch that I had clicked with so well.

The weather also helped the overall greatness of the trip - the East Cape sees its fair share of sunshine all year round compared to the rest of NZ, so it was very warm and sunny - pity we were stuck in the bus for most of the days, but we did get to lie out in it a bit which was lovely.

We left Gisborne the next morning for our next destination, and one that I was really looking forward to - see next update!!

Bye for now x

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