As there looked to be a few days of fine weather ahead, we thought that another short camping trip would be a good idea. There were road works to the north, so Raglan seemed like a good destination.
A lot less planning and preparation had gone into this trip so naturally a few things were forgotten; namely Doug's denim shorts! We called in at Pukekohe to try to buy some, but no luck, shops were shut. It was Anniversary Day.
The Landrover doesn't particularly like motorways, so we took Highway 22 from Pukekohe and had a lovely run on a quiet, excellent road.
It was such a hot day! We finally arrived in Raglan to find that everyone from the Waikato had decided to go there too. The town was was chocka-block! Every cafe was full, every carpark taken - Doug was longing to shed his hot jeans and buy some shorts. At last we found a carpark tucked away by the local Hospice shop. Doug couldn't believe how lucky he was when he spotted a pair of denim shorts on their shop model. Off the model they came, and on Doug they went - too big - but never mind. (No photo, I'm sorry - they were rather terrible.)
We then carried on over the bridge to find the camping ground. It was advertised as having 200 powered sites as well as various holiday cabins etc. There was a footbridge back over the river to town. The river was teeming with people, there were literally busloads - music was thumping and we felt a bit out of our comfort zone. Doug suggested that we just book in for one night, and see how it goes.
We were allocated our patch and were further put off to find a brightly painted surfy-van to be one of our neighbours.
It was amazing - when evening fell, the buses and hoards of people departed from the river and town, cleaners moved in and cleaned up all their rubbish, and the noisy thumping music stopped.
The holiday park was well run, quiet, and had excellent facilities. Even though it was very full there were always plenty of vacant showers, kitchen sinks etc. After one lovely quiet night we decided to book in for a second.
We sat on the beach after dinner and watched the sun go down. In the distance, we could see the outline of breakers on the horizon.
Tuesday
We met our surfer neighbour next morning. He was a nicely spoken young man who was looking forward to another day on the water.
We decided to explore on up the coast, and take a look at the surf beaches. Surfers come from many distant parts to ride 'the longest left in the world'. Soon we were looking down to one of the more popular beaches - we watched for a while, then travelled back towards Raglan.
The sandy beach, where Doug used to swim as a Hamilton youngster, seemed to stretch for miles. After lunch we walked; I enjoyed paddling on the edge and picking up a lot of the sticky black sand on my feet.
I'd had my fun; now it was time to find one of those 4WD tracks. Hopefully we wouldn't be met with a locked gate this time. The author of the 4WD book writes: 'This is the first of several difficult tracks that I'm willing to point you at but I haven't done myself......please ensure you are well equipped with plenty of recovery gear and provisions for an overnight stay just in case.' Please click the picture on the right to get the full effect. No, we didn't go there.
To end the day we visited the Bridal Veil Falls. After a walk through dense bush, we came to this beautiful waterfall that hurtled from a cleft in a rock to plummet a sheer 60 metres into a pool below. Doug took a phone movie. (This movie doesn't play on Chrome but is fine on Firefox.)
Apart from the volunteer Fire Brigade being called out in the night, we had another peaceful sleep.
