Touring North Island - day two.

Tatt av vinden
Bjørn Larsen
Sat 3 Nov 2018 06:04
We have been all the way north to Cape Roinga. The nature here is different from anything we have seen before. More sand than north west Jylland. Wide pastures with lots and lots of cows and sheep. Subtropical trees that are new to us. On the cape is an old lighthouse. There was about a kilometer to walk from the parking, and maybe 100 meters lower. At this cape meets the Pacific Ocean the Tasman Sea. The nature is dramatic there. The views fantastic. There were good walking paths from the parking site, and we clombed down a couple of hundred meters, easy downstairs, but we had to climb the stairs (yes there were stairs) the two hundred meters of altitude back...
The wind at the cape was about 18 knots, we guessed, but an accelation zone to the east of the cape was easily detected from our standing above the lighthouse. But who cares about that when you drive a car?
This Saturday all the motorcyclists in New Zealand ( not all, but most of them) had made their way to the cape. They must have been far more than a hundred. The Harley Davidson bikes were in the great majority I am quite sure. And they all had heavy motors. They made a lot of noise when they accellerated. The kind may be a shrinking lot, because as far as we could see very few were less than 50 years old, and even fewer women than among sailors. (And this year we have met more female captains than earlier, and more family boats, so cruising recruits we think.)
This morning our landlord served us breakfast on his balcony. The weather was better than the day before, and we had a lovely breakfast with a lovely view.
Now we are at a hotel in Paihia in Bay of Islands for one night, and next on our program is dinner. The weather is still ok. We are almost as concerned about the weather as when we were on the ocean. Not as much for the wind, but now more for the temperature and the rain.