Awoke to the sound of rain. Oh joy! Opotiki, being a holiday park rather than a hostel requires a 20c piece for 8 minutes hot showering. A good job we spotted that and exchanged some coins and a bad thing as it's the first place to be so restrictive.
Helen's driving today so I settle into my role as navigator. The east road, SH 35, is the only road so it shouldn't be that hard. We did pick up a small leaflet describing the points of interest on the route but they're hard to spot and when you do see them it's something like a bit of Maori carving on a church. Not really worth spending five minutes per village searching for.
The weather is heavily overcast with the cloudbase down to under 1000ft so there isn't really much to see. Combined with my natural tendency to sleep whilst being driven it wasn't long before the land of nod overwhelmed the land of the kiwi. Thus is continued for the rest of the day. The highlight being running low on fumes just as we rolled into Ruatoria for lunch. The petrol station was two pumps out the back of the 4 Square only locked. Once again this was an attended station and a blokey appeared, unlocked the pump and filled her up. We're not too used to self service in the UK for this kind of thing. The 4 Square was more of an all-rounder shop selling a little of everything (I didn't see any blackboard materials, though). A slightly better food selection but still nobody wandering the aisles with full trolleys. We haven't seen any subsistence crops of carrots and cabbages so how the Kiwi eats remains a mystery.
Eventually, with the clouds lifting a little we roll into Gisborne "the first to see the light." The most easterly city, anyway. Gisborne is quite a big place -- only the third or fourth place to have a recognisable supermarket. The YHA is only a few hundred metres out of the centre and [the route between] passes a couple of restaurants. Restuarants are a rarity (Internet cafes even more so -- the only place we found was NZ$ 2 per 15 minutes).
We whizz around the usual touristy spots -- where Cook first stepped ashore etc etc. We try the local winery cum restaurant for tea but they're full and [we] head back to one of the earlier restaurants. To stay within budget we have NZ$ 35 between us. I select a NZ$ 40 bottle of wine and we know we're in trouble. Good trouble as it happens as the food was delicious. Prepared in a slightly poncey fashion but good portions and very well prepared. Obviously, then, we had to have sweets afterwards... All that brought the bill to NZ$ 113. Our all-in daily budget is NZ$ 140. Hmm.
Sadly, for me, it's spring here and my hay fever is kicking in. It seems Southern Hemisphere pollen has the same effect on me.
YHA, Gisborne S38.67024
E178.03278 Elev. 99m! 
Copyright 2002 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.