After a very good sleep in our hostel room - Archie's Bunker in Napier is large, but the walls are thick, and we weren't bothered by any noise - it was time to get going again. This time, our destination was Gisborne, the most easterly city in the world and the first city in New Zealand to get the sunrise. A few people had told us not to bother going there because there wasn't any reason to, but we threw caution to the wind and went there anyway, and I'm very glad we did. Gisborne is a pleasant little town, and it would have been a shame to miss it. On arrival, we went straight to Waikanae Beach Holiday Park, which is located right beside a lovely beach and is obviously very popular with the holidaymakers. Unfortunately for us, this led to us being given the only available tent site ($24) in the park, which was separated from the busy main road only by a wire fence, and which was right under some large trees full of birds and pine cones. By the end of the night, the tent was covered in bird dirt, and our dreams were full of jet engines and pneumatic drills thanks to the lorries rumbling past as we slept.
Apart from the location of our tent site, I couldn't fault the holiday park itself. The facilities were excellent, including two laundry rooms with washers and tumble dryers, and a large walk-in chiller room with dozens of drawers, rather than a couple of over-filled fridges. The location was great too, although we didn't make the most of the beach on our first evening and it was very overcast the next day. What we did, instead, was to visit Sunshine Brewery, which is one of only a handful of microbreweries in New Zealand, and produces some very fine and award-winning beer. After the wine tour yesterday, which was mainly for me, it was only fair to let Skry do
some beer tasting as well! A very friendly guy in the brewery told us all about the different beers they do, and poured us a glass of each one, in between dealing with all the other customers that came through and filling up their plastic bottles with their beer of choice. There was a constant stream of customers and we only saw one person who bought new bottles from the fridge rather than having their own bottles refilled - it's a much more economical and environmentally friendly way of dealing with things.
Gisborne is also home to lots of Captain Cook stories, since apparently the first sighting of New Zealand by a European was round about here, and Cook landed here himself with his crew. We weren't overly impressed by the statue of Young Nick - he looked a bit gormless. All the same, that didn't stop Skry from imitating him!
