Mount Hikurangi, rising out of New Zealand’s remote east cape is famous for being the first place sunlight reaches each day. This beautiful region is blessed with stunning natural features but despite being the site of the first European landings it has remained quite isolated from the rest of the North Island. The East Cape Road takes you from Opotiki to Gisborne through Hicks Bay and along the coastline, it’s a 330km drive so you can do it in a day if you need to or you can enjoy yourself stopping off to admire the beautiful beaches, stretches of coastline and rugged green interior. The view along this spectacular piece of coastline doesn’t change that much with the seasons but if you travel the road around Christmas your route will be lined with bright red flowering pohutukawa. The largest pohutukawa, which has an impressive 22 trunks and a girth of around 20metres stands at Te Araroa, on the way to the East Cape Lighthouse, New Zealand’s most eastern point. Virgin forests, farms with sheep, deer and sometimes even ostriches and the occasional bubbling of natural gas will make up the rest of your view. Gisborne is the most eastern city, it isn’t much visited but it’s supposed to be sunny with good nearby beaches and vineyards (Chardonnay.). Up here the Maori culture has retained a tighter hold over daily life. Around half of the rural population are Maori, compared to around 15% in new Zealand as a whole. If you’re a film fan you may recognise this country from “Whale Rider”.

Written by  World Reviewer Staff.

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Not sure the photo is the east cape of NZ...looks more like

cape town in south africa or something like that...i could be wrong

but I've driven the east cape road(I'm nzer) and the hills don

look like that...my 10 cents

 

Comment posted 29th September 2009 by jono letts.

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