We left the lovely car park/caravan park at around 10am, heading north up highway 2 towards Hawkes Bay. It took a few hours to get into central hawkes bay, driving through mountains and pooring rain. Arriving in Hawkes Bay, the landscape changed into flat green fields full of cows and vineyards... apparently there are now more cows than sheep in New Zealand!!??

Later that day we headed towards one of the eastern beaches where we thought we could freedom camp... when we arrived in this coastal town it felt more like a ghost/holiday village. There wasn't anyone around at all and we couldn't find the area which was supposed to be for freedom campers. As it went dark we changed our plans and drove the 30 minutes back to the main highway where we found a lay-by to freedom camp heading towards Hastings.

We were woke up around 6am by some headlights shining through our back windows... wondering what was happening and whether it might be the police or something. Peter went out and saw that it was just a pick-up dropping off a coffee trailer. Deciding to get up and try see the sunrise, we grabbed a hot chocolate and headed to Havelock North.

Next to Havelock North we drove halfway up a hill, Te Mata peak. Walking the rest of the way up to the peak we had great views of the surrounding areas including Cape Kidnappers, Napier and the Hawkes Bay region. It was a lovely morning with the sun coming up just abit before we got to Te Mata peak.

Later we had the short drive to Napier where we had a quick breakfast next to the beach, before having a walk along the sea front. We also had a look around the town centre before driving upto Bluffs Lookout, where we were greeted by nice views of Napier Port.

With it being just before lunch we decided to get fuelled up and head to Taupo on the thermal highway.