New Zealand: Hawke’s Bay Region

Welcome back to the third week of the New Zealand adventure! If you haven’t already, go to the New Zealand section of my blog page and catch up on the first two weeks of the adventure with my first three posts. I decided to split the Hawke’s Bay and Wellington Regions into two posts because both regions had so much content. This week I’ll be covering our third week in New Zealand as we head to the Hawke’s Bay region where we stay in a campground with tons of shit, spend a few days exploring the coast, drink wine for a whole day, and gaze at redwoods and a seal.

After staying one last night in Rotorua following our mountain biking excursion, we made our way down towards Napier. We decided to go the east coast route down to Wellington and to travel through Taupo later so that we could enjoy the west and Taupo when it was warmer towards the end of our trip. For this trip we hadn’t done much itinerary planning prior to traveling. We had a few spots we knew we wanted to visit but no definitive order for visiting them. Because of my detail and organization oriented mind, I took on the task and chose most of the places we stayed for camping, and most were satisfactory if not greatly memorable.

Our first campground stay in the Hawkes Bay region however was probably my worst ever choice of campground. The campground was meant to be a stop along the way to the Hawkes Bay Coast, so it wasn’t suppose to be a spot we’d enjoy staying at for several days, but didn’t even make the list of spots we’d want to stay at even for one day. Unfortunately it was the only one we could stay at at the time, or so I thought. To this day if it comes up in conversation we refer to it as the “Sheep-Shit Campground”. Sheep are very numerous in New Zealand, and for some reason this campground (actually known as Lake Tutira Campground) is swarming with them. I swear I am not exaggerating when I say that every few feet there was scat. We didn’t even bother setting up our tent and got only a small amount of sleep in the car. The next morning we raced out of there as soon as we could and headed to Napier to decide what we were going to do next. After looking at pamphlets and walking along the beach we decided to go a little more north for a few days before going on a wine tour that apparently is a necessary activity when visiting Napier. I felt a tad stupid because we had found a site not to far from the “Sheep-Shit Campground” that we could have stayed at if I had looked harder.

Waikare Campground was by far one of the best spots we stayed at during our trip. It had a nice trail leading over some hilly topography along a river and down to a beach. The first day we spent most of the afternoon exploring the beach and hills and watching planes from a nearby strip fly over. The following day we drove out to Mahia Peninsula and went for a short hike that we thought would grace us with more views than we got. After we found a small but steep hill called Mokotahi Lookout on our way back through town and got the stunning views we were hoping for.

On our way back to the Waikare Campground we stopped at a beach and made some couscous and veggies, a staple meal during our entire trip. The next day we hung out at our site and read our books: “The Maple Sugar Book” and “The Good Life”, both by Helen and Scott Nearing. The next morning we drove back in to Napier and chose a hostel to stay at that night so that we wouldn’t have to drive after doing our wine tasting. We also chose a hostel so that we could shower off all the dirt and do some laundry so we would look moderately presentable on our wine tour instead of looking like mole people.

For our wine tour we went with The Grape Escape Hawkes Bay Wine Tours because they were affordable and you get five tastings and a cheese board. If you happen to come upon this blog while planning a New Zealand adventure of your own, I highly recommend them! One of my favorite wines that we tasted was a Ruby Syrah from Ash Ridge. I still have not been able to find it, but to be honest I sort of stopped looking a year or two ago. I had never had Syrah before but had tasted Shiraz, which apparently is quite similar, but the former has more smokey and earthy qualities to it.

After our tour we went out for dinner quite tipsy and then slept in a proper bed for the first time in what felt like weeks, even though it really had only been about 10 days. The next morning we made our way to Te Mata Park and Te Mata Peak to see some redwoods and views. The park had quite a few trails circling through the redwood groves. These redwoods are nothing compared to those seen out west in California but are still beautiful and majestic in color. The photos below are owned by Sarah Marsh.

After walking around for awhile and going to the highest point of the park, Te Mata Peak, we made our way to Kairakau Marine Club campground. When we arrived we went for a short walk since it was right on the beach and saw a seal off in the distance. The rest of the evening we planned and decided where and what we’d do next.

Thank you for reading about our third week in New Zealand! Next week I’ll be covering our visit to a town that is known for being at latitude 40 degrees south, a windy stay in a DOC hut, our visit to the “Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa”, and our sail across the Cook Strait to the South Island of New Zealand! See you next week!

Question for my readers, not a very interesting one, but have you seen this Ash Ridge Ruby Syrah wine anywhere? I am at a loss and figure it’s worth a shot to ask. Please comment below if you have!