The road back to Taupo

Tamarillos for breakfast! I would like to paint these, they remind me of pomegranates.

We journeyed back to Taupo down the east side of the Coromandel peninsula, stopping at some beautiful coastal resorts along the way. Kuaotunu is a very pretty area with a river flowing under a little bridge into the sea.

The sandy beach held a treasure of shells of all shapes and colours, and here again were the wonderful New Zealand blues of sky and water – a backpackers’ paradise.

Whitianga was a beautiful long beach, more commercialised than Kuatunu, with huge palm trees fringing the roadside.

There was a busy quayside populated by fishing enthusiasts both young and old. Just across the road from here we had flat whites with lemon slice in the warm spring sunshine before pressing on.

The scenery has to be experienced; it is just impossible to capture the essence on camera. There is so much diversity of vegetatation, change of terrain and contrast of colour over the brow of every hill and around every bend.

We past through Tairua Harbour. Here some very exclusive looking properties had been built tastefully around purpose built canals which led into the sea, so that the affluent owners could moor up their posh yachts and other sea-going craft right outside their houses….. how the other half live!

The road then took us along an expanse of mud flats, where flounder could be found, before leaving the east coast and crossing back over the peninsular range towards Thames and back to farming country again.

We called briefly on some South African friends of Leigh’s and Dan’s in Thames who had moved here from Taupo. They had bought a pretty light blue and white house beside a stream.

Then on to Paeroa where we photographed the L&P bottle. There seem to be quite a few iconic town statues similar to this one in New Zealand, rather like the giant fruits in Australia.

We finally got back on to the usual route to Taupo. The dark coppery coloured hedgerows of Photinia were eye-catching as we passed by the lush fields of Jersey cows.

The sheep also seemed more numerous than on our drive up, with many new snow-white lambs skipping on the hllside.

A New Zealand falcon lifting some carrion from the road caught my eye. A spectacular bird but we passed to quickly for a photo. However one bird that we got quite a few opportuities to photo is this New Zealand Kingfisher. He is invariably perched alone on an electricity wire somewhere near the road.