Christmas 2015 road trip, day 3: Castle Point

I don't know how we survived today. Don't think we've ever done THAT much driving in one single day. Started out early from Lake Tutira after a filling breakfast heading towards Napier to restock supplies. Stopped at a beach just before Napier and talked to one of the locals - who ended up being a cousin of the late Alex - the helicopter pilot that once rescued Matt and his dad, pulling them out of the sea after their boat capsized. What are the chances?!? New Zealand is such a small place!

Anyway, the guy recommended for us to stop at Blackhead Beach so we made that our first destination for today. It turned out to be a beautiful white sandy beach and we went for a cruise in the Surf. I love our 4WD :-)


After that we journeyed on to Castle Point on the East Coast. We'd seen this place on TV before and loving lighthouses knew we had to go there. Hiked around for a bit, took lots of pictures and enjoyed the beautiful coastal scenery.


Trying to stay along the coast as much as possible we kept on driving through some pretty remote areas only to realize we were going in circles just a little bit - and eventually ended back up on the main motorway. As it was getting a bit late we looked around for some campsites, but the only free ones were completely full. We tried out luck at Honeycomb Rock which on the map said had another lighthouse. Yeah right - after driving the no-exit-road (all gravel) for at least an hour we found out it was all private land! You could still go and walk to the lighthouse - only a 3/4 hour hike. Sorry, but not. Especially not since the sun was starting to set.

We drove around a bit and found what could have been the perfect spot to stay the night right on the beach - when suddenly 4 rather dodgy looking guys appeared on their motorbikes telling us they were camping here, too. Hiding from I don't think I want to know what. So on we journeyed *sigh*

We actually made it all the way to Cape Palliser tonight! Had crackers and cheese in the truck for tea and finally pulled over for a sleep just after 10pm. Exhausted, but happy we made it.

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