On Monday morning we took the drive from Hastings down to Feilding. It is normally a two hour trip, but we stopped at nearly every town and touristy spot, so it took five hours. When we arrived in Feilding we spent a really festive and happy evening with our hosts Shaun & Carol (thanks again guys).
Shaun had to work early on Tuesday, so we also made our way back to Hastings at ~9am, and stopped at the Gorge for an hour hike too. Brought back a lot of kiwi bush-hiking memories.
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| Hastings Farmers Market - much the same as 8 years ago. |
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| Bluff Hill overlooking Ahuriri. |
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| Something you still see absolutely everywhere here; corner stores (or dairies as they are called here). |
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Saw this cool, rear-engined 4-cylinder Subaru ute in Norsewood.
Numberplate? Nah, don't need it. How many of these could there possibly be, haha.
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| Quick lunch stop in Woodville, in a quaint coffee shop. |
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A part of the Te Apiti wind farm, which is on the Saddle Road. One can no longer use the
Gorge Rd following some large land slides (slips).
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| Getting ready for the Gorge hike; a short, 3km walk through the bush to a lookout. |
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| The Manawatu river and the start (at one end) of the Manawatu Gorge. |
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| The hike starts at the base of the bridge, at the Western end of the gorge. |
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| Typical NZ bush scenes all around. |
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Once we got home, we stopped at the local fruit shop (called The Fruit Shop), for
another local favorite; freshly made fruit ice-cream.
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| For our "last supper" in Napier, we stopped at The Boardwalk Beach Restaurant on Hardinge Rd. |
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| Mango milkshake and Lemon-Lime and Bitters. |
