(written on January 9th from notes)
I hung out for a while in the van this morning, it being a bit rainy, before heading down for a brief walk to the falls.
Accidentally drained my car battery down again and was grateful for a later 20-something German couple who gave me a jump start.
I decided to head east from there, planning to hike to a waterfall and then go to some hot springs.
When I stopped to get gas along the way, I noticed that there were a couple of girls at the pump across from mine struggling to get their gas cap open. For some reason, the cap just wouldn’t come off.
So I grabbed some tools and went over and unbolted some parts next to the filler neck in order to get more leverage on the cap. Eventually, I was able to get the cap off for them and show them how to get it off in the future if it got stuck again.
From there I drove over to where Google was taking me to start the waterfall hike, but it turned out to be on private land, Google dropping me off next to what looked like a wild horses reserve with a stunning black stallion?
Easily one of the most… majestic horses I’ve ever seen. I wish my sister Heather could have been there to see it.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get any good pictures of it.
So the waterfall was a no-go, and then when I looked closer at the hot springs that I wanted to go to, I realized that it was a commercial pay location, and I just… prefer the isolated locations, preferably by a cold water river to be able to go back and forth between the hot and the cold. 🙃
Where to go…
Not knowing exactly where to go from there, as I had no further plans then those two destinations, I found a freedom camping spot down the gorge between Opotiki and Gisborne and headed out.
The drive through the gorge was beautiful. The road follows a sizable River and winds through very steep, densely vegetated hillsides/mini mountains.
I stopped off at one place to look at a beautiful waterfall it was just coming right down from the side of the hills behind the road and then under to the river.
I stopped off at a historic bridge and poked around a bit.
Somewhere probably roughly halfway through the gorge, the dense forest gave way to a bit of ranch land, which is where you see the stunning green colors that are just… mesmerizing.
I snapped a whole bunch of photos, sending some to my brother Richard (who used to live nearby this area) and to my sister Heather.
Pictures don’t do it justice. It’s such a wonder for the visual feast.
I kept stopping to take more and more pictures of the vibrant green colors before finally coming to my stop for the night in Motu area and crashing.
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 