We did not came to Hasting on the right day. Cause our main purpose was to walk the Cape Kidnapper to see the Gannets bird colony. Because the walk is on beach track, we can only start the walk from Clifton Beach no earlier than 3 hrs after high tide, and return no later than 1.5 hrs after low tide. So the timing for today's high low tide isn't suitable the walk since it is a 4-5 hours return walk, 20km return. Gosh, make sure to check with Hasting or nearby I-sites before heading there. See here for more info about the track: http://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-visit/hawkes-bay/hawkes-bay/cape-kidnappers-gannet-reserve/plan-and-prepare/
And the famous Hasting farmers market is held on every Sunday, which we missed as well..
There are other options for taking tours to see the Gannets starting from $42 that is more flexible about the times, and of course educative and relaxing without the 5 hr walk!
So we just head to the nearby Havelock North town, on the way there are so many orchards selling the summer fruits! Yums, we got ourselves a real fruit ice cream again in Hasting for $4 with blueberries. And this punnet of apricots for $5. It taste so good, taste a little like papaya really. When we work in Roxburgh (central otago, south island) doing apricot thinning, we were told that those apricots grows up to the size of an orange. Well, these certainly are much smaller. But we thought we have to try some!
Xmas trees for sale!
At Havelock North, we visited Arataki honey factory*****. They have really nice information on honey, bees and the honey processing. There's even a magnifier glass to see the queen bee, bee hive and worker bees. And we saw some bees doing a dance, like flippering their wings and go round and round, which actually signals the rest of her bees that she found a good area with lots of pollen or nectar. Real cool. Eventually we spent like $192 on honey for souvenirs =.= we found that the manuka honey with UMF+10 sold here is cheaper than supermarket which is quite unusual. Also bought their Blue Borage honey and Rewarewa honey, yums yums! Open 7 days, 9am-5pm.
Mushroom farm near Arataki Honey. Really freshly picked mushroom, at much cheaper price than the supermarkets. About $7.25 per kg for white button mushroom. Really big ones! And we were lucky enough that the staff there shows us how the mushroom grow in the farm, 'huge aircon room'. The mushrooms that we saw have just grown not long, like few days, so they are still small but looks really cute like so many white ball stick on the mud. Mushroom actually grow pretty fast, just takes about one week and have to be picked within 3 weeks.
Silky Oak Chocolate Factory @ Napier
Only free tasting for milk and dark chocolate tablets. Nevermind, we still have like 4 kg of one of the best NZ chocolate in our van, hohoho!!
There is a chocolate museum here that seems interesting, but they were closing when we reach there before 4 pm.
On State Highway 5 towards Taupo, we free camped at Glenfalls recreation reserve, Waitara Road. With old pit toilets and water from stream. Very good free campsite, good grass carpet and lots of shade area.
Further north of Mahaka river, free parking for motorhome at Tarawera
Cafe with toilets.
Waipunga Falls lookout, pretty low profile but worth a look!
No comments:
Post a Comment