Marakopa and Te Kuiti

After visiting the bike fence at Oparau, we traveled to our POP (Park Over Property) for the night. This was a little lifestyle block on the banks of the Marakopa River at Te Anga. We were welcomed by the owners, Joanna and Simeon and their little boy Boaz. They are not motor homers themselves but set up the POP stop as a way of meeting people because of the remoteness of the property.

We had a quiet night there, and the next morning their 4 1/2 year old daughter took us for a tour of their river path. She talked the whole way, and was very entertaining. We called her our tour leader, but had to explain the term to her, telling her that tour leaders in Italy have little flags that they wave to tell people to follow them. This little one was so proud to have got us back to camp (after a 5 minute walk), getting us to follow her without a flag! Judy was given a little gift of field flowers and miniature pine cones.

Commencing our travels again, we carried on down the road from Te Anga to Marakopa Beach. The river does not have much of an estuary here, and nor does it have much of a beach.

Although Marakopa was a charming little place there really was not a lot to see so after a lunch break we carried on to see the Marakopa Falls. Neither Bruce nor I had been there before so we had no idea what a magnificent sight awaited us.

The falls are large, fast running and beautiful.

The walk through to the falls was only about 10 minutes but with some good uphill work coming back. I (Judy) am pleased with the way the new knees are feeling with all the exercise.

After the falls we decided to carry on to the Natural Bridge. We had been there before a few years ago with Nathaniel and Isla, but thought we would have another look. The walk in is beautiful, with a lot of board walk and bush. We have heard that the best time to visit Natural Bridge is at night because of the glow worms, but we didn’t want to leave our visit so late.

Bruce had found what sounded to be a wonderful POP stop just south of the area called Aratiatia Gardens. After leaving Natural Bridge that was where we headed. We thought we had plenty of time to get there, settle in, and have a relaxing evening – ha ha ha.

We found the place without any trouble at all and we read the signs directing us to camp in the paddock adjoining the barn, but failed to read the next part which said if wet to park on the gravel area. So, into the paddock we went. What looked so green and inviting turned out to be soft and squishy and unable to support a 4 1/2 tonne motor home, and so began our first experience of being well and truly stuck. Our first attempt to get out was to ask the owners to give us a tow, but they weren’t home, so we spent the next 1 and a half hours trying to get out of the bog. We finally managed to get the motor home up onto pieces of timber, but knew if we tried making a run for the gravel we would again be stuck, so there we stayed for the night.

Our night was quite peaceful and the next morning the owner came and helped us out by towing us with her ute. Judy then set to work with the spade leveling out the holes we had made in the field, while Bruce set to work cleaning the mud off everything. When all that was done we set out for a tour of the beautiful gardens -very reminiscent of Judy’s Mum’s garden at Scotsman Valley.

Unfortunately, as beautiful as this place was, there was, for the second night in a row, no internet coverage and no TV. So after our tour of the gardens we headed into Te Kuiti so Judy could update the blog. Bruce made us a coffee while Judy tapped away and then we went for a walk downtown.

Te Kuiti has recently been in the news because of their new statue to honour the late Colin Meads, so were were able to get a look at that. Bruce had a good attempt at tackling him.

They also had a nice (but small) Japanese garden and a very large fibreglass model of a shearer in action.

The town was clean and tidy, but had quite a few empty shops, and not many people. However, they all seemed to be friendly. Interesting enough though, for quite a large town, there was no dump station for motor homes.

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