Happy 20-20 from the Bay of Plenty

January 1^st, 2020

I woke up on the 31^st and noticed that I was pretty much out of data on my phone with just 150 megs left of 50 gigs.  So I opened the app from the provider, selected a package for another 40 gigs for 4 weeks for $80.  That’ll be plenty, plus it was really the only option.  I entered my credit card info and saw that I had a credit on my account of $80 but no data added yet.  I figured maybe it would take a bit of time for the transaction to go through. 

So I selected my destination on Google Drive and off I went, heading towards the Bay of Plenty as I thought the celebrating Twenty-Twenty at the Bay of Plenty was a good choice.  As I approached Gisborne, the city I was told by the Kiwi group at the old tree yesterday to avoid due to a music festival, my phone said it was out of data, however it kept tracking my progress.  I stopped to check my phone provider’s app and I had somehow chewed through almost $10 in credit but still had no data.  What?  Something’s not right.  I didn’t want to risk trying to top up the amount to $80 again and selecting the data package as there was a chance that I would be charged a full $80 on my credit card again.  What to do?  I knew that the best chance for finding a Spark store (my provider) would be in Gisborne.  Damn, okay, let’s see how busy it really is due to this festival.

Well it was quite busy.  I spent over an hour to go 7-8 km into town, park, walk to the store, get my problem fixed and get back out.  But it had to be done.  The place was crawling with young 20 year olds.  The guy in the Spark store, probably in his mid-30s, said it was kind of a right of passage for many young Kiwis to come to this festival.  He’s been there, done that.  I guess most of us have.

From Gisborne I took Highway 2 that cut inland instead of taking the coastal route which would have been about 2 ½ times longer of a drive.  I’d asked that family at the big tree about whether it was worth taking the coastal route and the grandfather had said that the rewards probably didn’t justify the effort.  I had in my mind that the inland route would be boring and simply utilitarian, but I was pleasantly surprised.  The second half of it followed along the Waioeka River through a lush canyon.  Very nice.  Sorry, but for some reason I just wasn't in the mood to take pictures...so more reading...

I had planned on stopping near the coast to do a short hike to see a 2000 year old tree (seems to be the theme lately, checking out old trees), but by the time I reached the small town of Opotiki on the coast I was starting to get concerned that it might be tough to find a camping spot, being New Year’s Eve and all.  The tree’s been around 2000 years, I’m sure it can wait one more day.

Heading south from town, I passed by one freedom camping spot that I had kinda dismissed after looking on the CamperMate app.  It sounded small and was close to town so I didn’t figure there’d be a chance of finding a spot plus there was just a toilet.  I thought it would be nice to hop in the sea on this hot afternoon but wanted to shower after to get rid of the salt so I had my eye on a couple campsites that you had to pay $15-20 to stay at, but they had showers.  I passed one “motor camp” that wasn’t even on my radar and oh my, it looked ridiculous.  There was not enough space to walk between tents.  It looked more like a refugee camp than a holiday camp.  That’s when I clued in that most Kiwis with children would not risk trying to find a free freedom camping spot on their Christmas holidays but would book at site at a motor camp in advance. 

I turned Betty 2.0 around and backtracked to that first Freedom Camping spot I saw.  Well, what a score.  There were only 5 other campers there and technically only 6 were allowed so I was in like Flynn.  Turns out that others showed up and no one cared but I had the last nice flat spot on the grass.

When I first arrived, I could see an island off to the northeast with a couple of peaks, maybe a few hundred feet high, off to the right called Moutohora Island.  But then I also noticed White Island, 50 kilometres offshore.  Also known by its Maori name Whakaari (note: any time you see “wh” in Maori, it’s pronounced as an “f”).  This is where the tragedy just 2-3 weeks before occurred with the volcano erupting and 18 people died and others were horribly burned.  I could see some plumes coming from it.  Kinda eerie to see.

Moutohara in the distance:

Zoomed in.  Unfortunately my photo of White Island didn't turn out. 

The only fellow camper that I really interacted with was an very friendly Dutch guy who moved to New Zealand about 6 years ago named Chart.  I think his wife was a Kiwi.  He was super friendly and a real beach goer so he told me about a bunch of places I should check out on the northland (the name for the area north of Auckland).  In the end he said “Just go down every road towards a beach that you can”.  Good advice.

That evening I had a nice dinner, walked along the beach but being by myself it was hard to be bothered to stay up until midnight to usher in the New Year.  Most of the other campervans seemed to be in the same mode. I was asleep by 10:30.  Apart from a few fireworks close to midnight, it was relatively quiet at the campsite, and that was fine with me.

Hello 2020!