By the numbers
3.61 kms
4,780 steps
The weather was still pretty crappy this morning and I wasn’t sure about what was going on. It did look like it was going to ease a touch, but you never knew what was going to occur. I took the offer to take a drive to have a look around town, which IO would never turn down.
The first place we ended up heading towards was the Waro Limestone Scenic reserve, which was a coal mining area around Hikurangi in the early 1900s. The area is now a reserve, which has a lake. I didn’t take much of a walk there as there was plenty of mud and I was getting stuck in the soggy mess from the rain. There is a whole walking trail around the limestone formation, but if the ground starts squelching then it is probably best not to continue walking. The next location was a natural spring that was near Kamo they people once used as a drinking source. It had its own culvert next to the road where you could walk down for a look. It wasn’t sign posted or anything, so unless you were a local or knew what you were looking for then you would not know where it was.
We took a drive through to Kamo where I ended up with a book or three on the local area. All I did was look in the window of a second hand bookstore and see books on the local area. The lady inside did say the Reyburn House in Whangarei wasn’t stocking as many books as they usually do, so kind of lucky I came to this store instead or else there would not have been anything to see. I didn’t mind having a little walk around and mum showed me some other places family lived in on our way out to the Whau Valley Dam, which is basically a big earth dam unlike at home. This is the main water supply for the town and with all this rain it might fill up a touch more.
The next place on my great list to visit was to the top of Parihaka, a lookout I always seem to get a look at on foot, but this time I wanted to go up by car. I soon learnt if I had wanted to walk up there via the road, it might have become a problem as there was no track. The usual walking trails would be the best way up. At the top the gate was closed, but we could have walked the rest of the way up the hill. The funny thing about being up the top was they went overboard with the speed bumps, it was like they wanted the cars to bounce along the carpark without marking them too well. We were heading to the Abbey caves too as it was basically on the same road. I had to look at my Google maps to see if there was another way to return instead of going back through the town basin. I did find there was another road, which was lucky. We do seem to have the luck in going through the wrong entrance into carparks in this country as they suddenly are right on top of them without warning. There are three caves you can explore, but they are more of your own self tour with some degree of difficulty. There is also the remains of an old homestead, built not something you want to take a walk around on a wet day. In the same area is a BMX trail with several levels of difficulty.
We followed the road from the Abbey cave and popped out where the AH Reed park was, so I knew where we were then. Now I know where the back roads lead out the back of Whangarei. I don’t actually mind going on weird roads until you look at a map to see where you actually are. Mum had to pick up her glasses and we found that the postie had been, but we got carded so had to find the mail centre. We had to stick around for close to an hour until the van returned and we were able to collect the glasses. The next job after we had dinner was to pick up my uncle and aunt at the local airport, which also meant due to the weather the plane had been delayed.
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