Cape Egmont

The new day dawned with showery rain, and not the heavy down pours that were forecast. We spent some time emptying our waste water tanks and filling up with water, with the day still not looking too bad to we decided to head around the cape as per our original intention. Both of us wanted to see the Cape Egmont lighthouse and Bruce wanted to go to see the Maui Gas plant.

The first town we came to was Manaia and we were somnewhat amused to see that they had called themselves the Bread Capital by virtue of the fact that Yarrow’s bakery is based there. In fact, I think that is the only industry that is based there.

Gerald Shand was well acquainted with Yarrow’s who used to produce quite a good range of frozen dough. However, I think calling themselves the Bread Capital is a bit of a stretch!

The next place we called in to was Kaupokanui Beach. This is really just a Motor Camp that does not allow dogs so we got out for a look but did not linger. It was a really pretty place though, with a small pedestrian bridge over to the dunes and the surf beach, but most swimming, in the summer, is done in the river.

We decided that we would leave the Maui Gas Production Centre until tomorrow, on our way back, but we did have a quick look at the Kupe Production field – just a mess of pipes to me, but more interesting to Bruce.

Opunake came next and it is known for being the town of street murals. There were certainly several of them, but Opunake itself was a nice little place regardless. It is the birth place of Peter Snell and Jim Bolger, and there were a couple of freedom camping sites in lovely locations.

The Cottage Hospital was the place where both Peter Snell and Jim Bolger were born. It sits beside a small lake. This lake was originally a vegetable garden for the local Redoubt (a fortress on the point) but was later filled with water and used as the main water supply for the Redoubt. One of the freedom camps overlooks this lake.

The coastline is very rough, as with a lot of the coastline on this coast.

We drove up to the local coastal lookout, on the point where the old Redoubt was sited. Bruce was a bit amused at the boat ramp that was there. Launching from Flaxmill Bay is a totally different experience.

It was farewell to Opunake and on we travelled to Cape Egmont. The weather was pretty wet and windy at times, but not really cold. We planned to stay at the Cape Egmont Boat Club and were quite surprised to find that this was at the base of the light house.

The light house is not functioning any more and has been turned into a museum, but again it is open by appointment, so we did not go in. The campsite was great though and once again we were the only ones here. There was a big field there so the dogs were happy.

Once again, Bruce was interested in the boat ramp, comparing it to launching off the beach at Flaxmill Bay.

We looked for the sunset that this place is supposed to be famous for, but although it wasn’t raining just then, the cloud cover meant that the sunset was pretty well hidden.