Pirongia and Kawhia

Getting new tyres

Pirongia museum

Lunch at Pirongia cafe

Kawhia wharf

A contemporary ocean going waka outside the Marae

Malcolm soaks his feet in a hot pool

We moved to Pirongia to sit out the storm that is going to sweep over the country tomorrow.  (Very warm today and hazy cloud covering the sky).  Just as we drove into the settlement we got a puncture.  We drove to our freedom spot just on the edge of the village and called a tyre guy.  He found that we also had a flat tyre on the other side (the two inside tyres at the back) so to cut a long story short, we ended up getting 2 new tyres.  We weren't planning on doing that till we are back at home but at least this puncture occurred in a spot where it was easy to get assistance and not at any of the remote locations we've been to lately!

In the afternoon we went out to Kawhia - where we went out to Te Puia Springs, at an ocean beach just out of town (which is inside the harbour).  Te Puia is a beach, like hot water beach in the Coromandel, where you can dig a hole and have a soak.  The difference is that there is next to no-one at Kawhia, just a remote west coast beach.  At Kawhia township we saw the place where the Tainui Canoe was hauled ashore after making the trip from Hawaiki (Pacific Isalnds)when New Zealand was being colonised by Maori.  Kawhia and Raglan are areas we'd like to spend more time exploring some day.