Detours and land slips.

 So far I have not mentioned the threat of Tsunamis. New Zealand's GeoNet locates around 20,000 earthquakes in and around New Zealand each year; most of these are small but around 250 are big enough to be felt.  All along the East coast (well the bits we have visited so far) have Tsunami evacuation signs and painted blue safe zones clearly marked on the roads. It's good to know that if the earth moves for us (keep it clean) or the sea starts to rapidly recede, we can get to high ground as quickly as possible.

Did I mention the Toy has no gas? It's all electric but never fear, what we do have is a gas camping stove which meant I could kick Ian out of bed in the morning to get it set up outside. Cups of tea was then served to me on a regular basis (I have him well trained!) This morning I decided on bacon butties for breakfast, so it was my turn to have a go at using the stove. Shame really because I now have no excuse not to be the one getting up first thing! 

Today our plan was to head toward Cape Palliser. On leaving our campsite a small road off to the right grabbed Ian's attention. "Must go to explore" said he. Crikey! We do go down some challenging roads, great fun though.

We didn't drive through that!

 

Onoke Spit

 

From Ocean beach and with a detour to Lake Ferry, it would have been roughly 80 km to reach Ngawi but instead, because the road was closed due to an event, we ended up doing 171 km, going back to Featherston and around the top end of Lake Wairarapa. The arrows on the map below mark the starting point and where we should have turned off.

It did give us the opportunity to use the dump station at Featherston again to fill the water container. We didn't really need to but not knowing where the next fill point was, best we do it when we can. Thankfully the toilet on board is only used for emergency. Most camp sites have the basic 'long drop' toilets.

Lake Ferry was an eye-opener. Never have we seen wave action like it. This from Wiki

The ocean outlet of Lake Ōnoke is frequently closed by natural wave action on the beach, and this can lead to rising water levels in the lake. Natural forces can lead to the opening of the lake outlet, but historically, the lake levels have been controlled by excavating a channel through the beach to the sea, to limit flooding of properties around the lake

 

  Onward then to Ngawi, along more precarious roads. Lots of slips due to the waves, this part of New Zealand is suffering somewhat.

Ngawi is a fishing village, there is also a great camping spot almost on the beach. We thought last night's was good, this was even better.

Later we will have a walk to see the fishing boats and tomorrow we continue to Cape Palliser lighthouse.

And wildlife (the seal was seen from the camping spot)