Even a drab two-bit poohole of a town can brighten when you meet someone lovely. Opotiki's mediocrity was quickly forgotten when Shona came to meet me for lunch. I haven't seen Shona in years and years! It was great to catch up with her, and meet her bloke & kids. After a quick lunch in the sunny outdoor terrace of a Hot Bread Shop, Shona lent me her car and I drove out to the garden with NZ's largest selection of native flora. It was a pleasant walk, with the highlight being a large native tree that was used as a burial ground by the local Maori iwi (that's tribe, in case you're wondering).

In the late afternoon I drove to Shona's office and she then drove me up the coast to her house in Hawai. It's a gorgeous spot, with huge views out over the beach and across to White Island, an active volcano. Shona's family is delightful! The two kids are full of beans and seemed to take to me quite quickly.

Before dinner Shona took the kids & me down to the local marae (Maori meeting house) and we got a Maori guy who happened to be standing outside it to show us around. It was interesting to see a "working" marae, rather than one that was famous and in guide books. The artwork was clearly of a poorer quality, but that made it more charming (I hope that doesn't sound patronising) because it really was of the people, for the people. Each bit of decoration served a purpose - in much the same way as the stained-glass windows in European churches are there to tell a story. I've got a bunch of photos of the marae and I look forward to sharing them with you.

After a quick roast dinner back at the house, Shona drove me back into Opotiki to catch another courier van, this time one that goes from Gisborne to Tauranga daily. The driver was an interesting middle-aged white guy who (insanely in my view) does this trip every day and has been for years. Mostly he was delivering fresh fish to various chip shops along his route. We had a good chat about all sorts of things, and in the end I helped him to pick up some free firewood that was in big bins outside a timberyard before he dropped me off at the YHA.

It was late, so I didn't go into town. I just crashed in the dorm and got a good night's sleep.

The next day I walked into Tauranga, had a quick look around, then caught a bus over to Mount Maunganui. At the base of the mountain there are some hot salt water pools. I went in initially just for a soak, but then I saw they had massages at a very reasonable price (NZD 50 for an hour!) so I put my name down. And wow! It was a fantastic massage. When I walked in after a quick dip, the guy asked me what I was after for the hour. I suggested we start with a bit of work on my back and see what happens. In the end we spent almost the whole hour just on my shoulders, with lots of really deep pressure work. He was finding stress that has been in there literally for years, and stuff that previous massages have only touched on but never dealt fully with. It was bloody brilliant. I was most amused when the masseur told me he was leaning his whole body weight onto his thumb at times!

I grabbed a sandwich for lunch - which was a shame because there were loads of really interesting-looking restaurants on the main drag at the Mount; it's a bit of a tourist trap in a classic seaside sort of way, but it was more upmarket than I had been expecting (or was that just because I'd been away from civilisation for almost a week now?) - and then dashed to catch my coach up to Auckland.

Not surprisingly I dozed on the coach, as my body dealt with the toxins that had been released by the massage, and pretty soon we were at Manukau City, where Gayle & Kevin came to pick me up. We drove back to their place and then the evening's festivities began: Gayle's two younger sisters, Joanne & Sharon, with their partners, Les & Phil (both Poms) and her brother Greg had turned up to barbie with me, of course in the company of their parents, my cousin Al & his wife Maureen.

It was amusing the way they were clearly trying not to talk about the rugby too much, in case I was alienated. In the end of course the telly went on and we watched the NPC final between Canterbury and Wellington. Every one of my relatives there, from old to young, had opinions on the game and shared them with vehemence. I had a great time, aided not only by lively banter but also by great food and plenty of beer & wine.

The next day Gayle & Kevin took me to the top of One Tree Hill to enjoy the view over Auckland. The low cloud has just lifted enough to allow a good view over the whole area, and you could see how Auckland is surrounded by sea pretty much on all sides. Then we drove to meet first with Greg in his cabinetmaker's workshop, to which he is adding a really cosy coffee bar and doing all the woodwork himself, and then we went to visit Sharon & Phil in their beautiful beautiful home on the shores of a perfectly circular ex-crater which is now an inlet of the sea.

In the afternoon the three of us were joined by Al in a walk down to the pub nearest their house. It was in a purpose-built town centre that serves as the local shopping mall. Surprisingly, the mall was very pleasant. It really felt like a cute little town centre, with loads of pavement café style bars & restaurants. They'd even gone so far as to put a road through the middle, to add that authentic exhaust fumes & revving engines touch!

The beer was brewed in the pub and was delicious. I had a couple of pints of Monk's Habit, which I had been drawn to because the branding reminded me of Abbot Ale in the UK, and which indeed tasted like Abbot. It wasn't cheap though: 10 bucks for a pint! I had quipped with the barmaid that I didn't mind paying that much because I was a Pom with strong sterling in my pocket. Then, when I asked in a little bit more seriousness how they could justify such high prices, I was slapped down with the retort "well, we're full of Poms with sterling in their pocket"! Touché.

When we got back, we had some dinner outside in the garden and then drank some wine - well, what a surprise there! Gayle & Kevin headed off to sleep quite early, and I stayed up and chatted with Al & Maureen for an hour or two. It was so so lovely to meet and talk with a relative I didn't even know I had until less than a month ago. It was so comfortable chatting with Al about his childhood memories in the UK, memories of my dad & all of his family, some stories that I had heard from other cousins and many other stories that were new to me. It was an exquisite pain to have someone bring my dad back to life like that.

The next morning I said my farewells and caught the InterCity bus down to Taupo.

I saw the sun rise before any of you did on Thursday 21st October!! So there! Unless by a bizarre coincidence one of my dear readers happened to be at the East Cape Lighthouse on said day, in which case you'll have beaten me to it by some three seconds. I was too lazy and cheapskatey to bother going all the way out to the lighthouse. Instead I watched the sun rise over Te Araroa Bay. Jocelyn's husband dropped me off on the coast road on his way to work, and I stationed myself on a convenient tree-free ridge to see the glowing orb of Helios rise out of the sea.

So, what to do with the rest of the day? I mean, it was only 6.30 and it was a nice sunny day. So I wandered very slowly back down towards Hick's Bay, down a cute little track to a horseshoe bay beneath the motel where I pottered about for a bit in the sand. Then I walked around to the shop, bought some lunch, and wandered on to the Hick's Bay beach. I was the only soul for miles around. I walked up and down that beach, and even had a skinnydip in the water, for about two hours without seeing anyone! Okay, so it's not tourist season, but you'd think there was someone round, wouldn't you?

After the beach I had a bit of a laze under a tree and read a book (still on the Dickens novel). Then I walked slowly out towards a rather splendid waterfall that I had had pointed out to me as we left the hostel that morning - oh so many hours before, and seemingly in another country, for where were the curling wisps of pre-dawn fog now, and the chilly frost that had gripped me while I made my scrambled eggs in the pitch dark?

The waterfall was fab: not too much water, but a lovely steep wall of white rock which caused the water to tumble from side to side as well as down into the babbling brook at the foot of the hill. Once again, I was the only person around. I was getting quite used to this solitude by now, but I can't say I was disappointed when a car pulled up beside me as I walked back along the main road to my hostel. And who should it be at the wheel but Mark from the Flying Nun in Gisborne!

I jumped in, and he told me all about the freaky experience he had just had with a stoned alcoholic non-coherent Maori hitchhiker he had picked up in Te Araroa. Crazy shit! He ended up being introduced to this guy's almost-non-English-speaking mates in a dodgy shack in the middle of the forest, where one of them proceeded to stroke his white arm flesh, brandishing an axe he was using to chop up a wild pig, and say "we not going to eat you!". I think I'm secretly happy that my life isn't quite as interesting as that.

Mark was looking for somewhere to stay, so I recommended my place and he took a room there. Then we popped out to do a spot of shopping - but guess what, the shops were already shut. We managed to find the chippy still open in Te Araroa, then headed back to the hostel. Mark has a laptop with him, which was handy, because he kindly allowed me to burn my photos to CD. I also did a CD for Jocelyn of my photos from that morning, because she wanted to put them up on her wall.

It was a quiet evening.

The next day I caught a shuttle van heading the other way, down to Opotiki. The coast on the west side of East Cape is spectacular, with lots of delightful bays and inlets that are easily reached from the road. Sadly I was a little too tired to appreciate them to the full. I woke up with a start in Opotiki, though, because it was so dire! If this was what it was to return to civilisation, I was tempted to turn right round and head back out into the bush. Drab streets and crap shops abounded, along with petrol stations. Luckily I found an internet cafe so my time wasn't completely wasted.

I awoke on Tuesday to a fresh breeze but a gorgeous sunny sky. I walked into town, and then ambled around all over the seafront and through the centre of town. I ended up (conveniently) at a winery at lunchtime, where I did a tasting of five wines and three local cheeses. Wow! What a concept!

After lunch I walked up the big imposing hill that stands across the river from town, from where I had excellent views over Gisborne and across Poverty Bay (so called because when Captain Cook landed here - his first landfall in NZ - he misunderstood the local Maori welcome/challenge, killed a few men, and had to flee without replenishing his water or food stocks. Ah, the joys of culture clash!), out over Young Nick's Head (the spit of land that was the first of NZ to be sighted from Captain Cook's boat, by Nick Young aka Young Nick), and back into the hills of the northern end of the Hawke's Bay area. It was so sunny! So you can understand how bitter I was to have discovered that morning the loss of my shades in Napier. D'oh!

In the afternoon I walked slowly back into town, passing NZ's biggest marae (Maori meeting house / centre for religious ceremonies). Sadly I couldn't enter, because you can't go in without being invited in and there was no-one I could ask to invite me in, either at the marae or on the "invite me in" phone line. Oh well.

I did however visit the Gisborne museum & art gallery on the banks of one of the rivers. This was small but perfectly formed, including a display of photos from the turn of the 19th century paired with photos of the same spot at the turn of the 20th century. Fascinating. Also, there was the best bit of weaving I've ever seen, which instead of being a skirt or cape was the female torso itself.

In the evening I decided to go back to the Italian place - well, there wasn't really anything else in town that grabbed my fancy - and this time I had a locally brewed beer with my meal. It wasn't that great though. Oh, the food was fine but somehow the atmosphere wasn't the same at all, even though I was blessed by a few words with the manager (who I think appreciated my show of loyalty). I got back to the hostel and got to chatting with a couple of Brits in my dorm, Mark from England and Shona from Scotland.

Together we drove up to the Gisborne observatory, which according to the Lonely Planet has open stargazer nights on Tuesdays. When we pitched up however, the guy looked bemusedly at us and basically told us to sod off. So instead we went to the hostel and from there walked to a famous pub out of the centre of town, where scrapped cars and trucks have been turned into furniture. But guess what? That bar was shut too.

So the four of us (we had been joined by a girl who is one of the judges in the upcoming Gisborne wine festival - in fact I had a great chat with her about the vineyards I had visited in the Hawke's Bay, and she shocked me with the news that on the day of our visit to Craggy Range their master vintner, a precocious talent and a nice guy, had died in a freak surfing accident) we trudged back to the hostel and had a beer sitting in the garden, where it was bloody freezing and the only warmth came from the massive wafts of wacky backy that were swirling out of the games room.

On Wednesday I decided to travel round the East Cape. This is one of NZ's more remote regions, with a large Maori population and no towns to speak of. The public transport infrastructure for the region consists of private minivan drivers who carry people, parcels & news up and down the coast in a daily round-trip from Te Araroa - a township of 900 people at the northernmost extremity of the Cape with one shop and one chippy - to either Gisborne (in comparison a veritable metropolis) on the east coast or Opotiki (a dead-beat town if ever there was one, but still a kind of latter-day Chicago to the East Cape's Injun Country) at the western end of the Cape.

Sitting in the back of one of these minivans, I felt I was back in Thailand, doing the journey from the west coast down to Malaysia in a succession of similar vehicles and jumping from one to the next in strange little towns across the south of the country. But the NZ experience was different because this time I was the only white person apart from the driver, whereas there it was only the driver who wasn't white. I had my first proper chats with Maori Kiwis (if you don't count the quick conversation I had while queueing for that taxi in Dunedin, and a brief talk with the driver of the bus that took me to my Maori Cultural Evening in Rotorua): you know, the getting-to-know-you kind of chats driven by "Where do you live?" and "Do you have brothers & sisters?" type questions.

The East Cape is lovely, seemingly unspoilt (well how much of NZ looks spoilt anyway? Not much) and full of fresh air and sea breezes. I ended up staying with the wife of one of the minivan drivers. She runs a horse trekking business and has a few dorm rooms to let in her house. The first thing she asked me after I'd put my bags down was "Have you done your shopping?" Of course, I replied that I hadn't. She then had a rant about "boys" who just don't think practically and "those men" drivers who don't tell tourists about the limited shopping opportunities in the East Cape.

It turns out that in Hick's Bay (what an appropriate name for such a little Hicksville Arizona!) there is only one shop, and they closed at five. Luckily, the lady offers free eggs from her own hens (so tasty! the free-range yolks were orange) and she also had some pies in her freezer that she sold me for cheap. So I was okay. It was nice being mothered for a while by Jocelyn. Makes a change from the usual traveller scene. She came and sat with me and had cups of tea and chatted about her family & stuff.

Jocelyn's husband was a shy retiring type - unlike her six calves that she is bottle-feeding, who are boisterous as can be: after their formula milk ran out they started head-butting the teat-covered bucket she uses for feeding, and then they started suckling on each other's naughty bits until they finally realised that there was no more milk coming for them!

It was a cold night that night, but at least the stars were out and that augured well for the next day's sunrise watching...

Sunday in Napier was very much a continuation of the excellentness of Saturday. The day started with buns for breakfast (I managed to arrange some of them into a "sticky tiki" which will at some point feature on my photos pages, Tiki being a well-known naughty looking Maori demigod) followed by an outing to the regional finals of the JCB digger dexterity competition. (True, Amanda didn't join us on this one, as it was a tad blokey, but I tell you she missed out!) Some of the feats were mind-boggling: I mean, who would have thought that you can use a JCB to play croquet, pour a cup of tea or slam-dunk a basketball? And yet these were just some of the skills on display down at the beachside.

After an hour of boys & their toys fun we went to fetch Amanda and head out to the Sileni winery for lunch. Once again, the food was stunning and the setting was delightful. A lot of effort has gone into making the gastronomic experience of the Hawke's Bay wineries a memorable one, and Sileni is no exception. But the most exciting thing about lunch was that it was interrupted by the arrival of the sleek black helicopter we had seen yesterday at Black Barn! That is one cool chopper, and what a way to arrive in style!

After lunch we popped into the delicatessen attached to the restaurant and walked around with a glass of meaty rosé. Amanda & Bernard bought some of the drunken mushrooms that we had had with lunch (marinated in red wine and five spice), Tye bought some of the white wine we had had with lunch (scrummy chardonnay) and I bought a stick of honeycomb coated with chilli-flavoured chocolate. The girl behind the counter had never tried it, so on my second offering of it to her she giggled and cut off an end for herself. It was quite painless.

Bernard & Amanda had to drive back down to Wellington, but I spent a few more hours with Tye, visiting his mum (and grabbing a big bag full of lemons from her tree), Kirsten's mum and some friends before he dropped me off in town.

That's when I started coming down off the high that had been the weekend. I was in a generally calm frame of mind, but environmental effects conspired against me. First off Napier was absolutely dead as a dodo on Sunday night - which was all the more surprising after the previous night's kicking nightlife and bar scene. Second, it started pissing down with rain and didn't stop until the following morning.

On Monday morning, as I was due to catch a bus to Gisborne at lunchtime, I decided to fit in a few hours in the Napier museum. This was a great place, with a fantastic display of Kiwi household goods from each decade of the 20th century. I never realised they had vacuum cleaners in the 1900s! And I'd forgotten just how chunky those first mobile phones were in the 80s & 90s. I just about managed to reach the museum before the rain started coming down again in buckets. As a consequence of the morning's sudden weather shift, I think I left my sunglasses in the museum. Bollocks!! That's got to be the third pair of Ray Bans I've lost in the last 18 months. I'm pretty sure I left them there, because when I called the next day to check I was told there had been a pair of shades floating around but when I rang back later they had dematerialised - into someone's pocket, no doubt.

The journey up to Gisborne was also made sans coat: I foolishly left my fleece jacket in the back of the van that took me and another girl from our backpackers to the bus station. That journey was messed up on the way in, and messed up on the way out. Hmph. At least the backpackers agreed to post it on to me - albeit at my cost.

Gisborne was just as wet as the whole way there had been. On arrival I got picked up by another transfer van, this time to the Flying Nun Backpackers, a converted nunnery a mile out of town. After I dumped my bags I got a lift back into town and wandered around. Gisborne is a smallish town, on a par with Wanganui. There's the same One Road With All The Shops On And Parallel Roads Have Bugger All To See feel about it, but Gisborne is on the confluence of two rivers so there's more bridges than in Wanganui. Also, Wanganui doesn't have the vineyards or the harbour. I walked about reasonably aimlessly and came upon a delightful Italian restaurant, where I had the freshest tastiest Greek salad I've had in many a year followed by fresh fettucine in a carbonara sauce (well it WAS raining). I walked back to the hostel satisfied and amazed by the glow of the sunset.