Gisborne to Rotorua

After our "Great Walk," we spent 3 nights in Gisborne, a city on the east coast. In fact, it claims to be one of the first cities in the world to see the sun rise. There are plenty of monuments to explorer James Cook, as this is one of the many places he landed. Our stay coincided with a holiday weekend, as Monday, October 27 is Labour Day in New Zealand. So, ironically enough, lots of people were in town on holiday, but most shops and cafes were not open, or were not open by late afternoon. For the most part, this suited us fine. On Sunday, we recharged and caught up on the blog, as well as some planning. In the evening, we drove to a park overlooking the city and simply enjoyed the views. On Monday, we took our time over coffee at a cafe before walking around town. In the afternoon, we walked to the Gisborne Wine Center to taste some local wines. (Usually we have preferred to visit the wineries themselves, but it was a triple whammy of national holiday, wineries are not usually open Monday, and Gisborne had just wrapped up a wine festival.) We paid $15 to taste 5 wines. To put this in perspective, of all our tastings in New Zealand, we have paid at only 3 locations, and paid only $5. At the wineries they may not pour generously, but they do usually have 7-8 styles to sample. The Wine Center did help us locate an open winery outside of town, so we also visited Wright's vineyard. Gracyn liked the Gewurz and Alan liked the sparkling Moscata. 

The rain started in Gisborne and it followed us to Rotorua. On Tuesday morning, October 28, we drove from Poverty Bay to the Bay of Plenty (Captain Cook named these, based on his ability to find resources in each place), then inland to Lake Rotorua. Luckily Rotorua has a great museum, a building which used to be a bath house for Victorian visitors to "take the cure" in the hot, sulfurous water provided by the nearby volcano. The museum's intro video explains the Maori legends and history of the land and Maori tribes in this area, before and after the Europeans came. The star of this video is Temeura Morrison, a Rotorua native, who plays Jengo Fett in the Star Wars saga. My nerd worlds are colliding. We checked out beers at a pub called Brew, serving local Croucher Brewing creations. Gracyn's Black IPA was excellent. 

Since Wednesday morning started out with clear skies, we visited the Redwoods Forest. A hundred years ago, seeds from California Redwoods were obtained, and planted here among many other types of trees. The Redwoods flourished, and now cover many acres. We walked about 5 km, and certainly enjoyed ourselves. I have to say though, having visited Muir Woods outside San Francisco, I was not blown  away by these young saplings. As Alan pointed out, it is not often that America can claim an older landmark than another country, but the redwoods are a good example.

As the skies darkened, we returned to the Rotorua Museum to see the remaining exhibits. Later we were able to wander the downtown, before dining at Pig & Whistle, a pub in an old police station building.