Whakatane

This morning I woke up to waves crashing on the shore & sheep bleating. Evidently a lamb had gotten out of the fence & couldn't figure out how to get back in. He was making a lot of noise.

Lots of traveling today. Past some beautiful, pale limestone or sandstone cliffs with big trees hanging on by their gnarly roots.

We drove quite a bit along the coastline & stopped in Whakatane (pronounced fakatani). Went grocery shopping, had a smoothy at a cafe & stopped at a place called Big Barn where I bought some souvenirs. Exchanged American $ at a bank.

The beaches were almost completely deserted. Where's all the people? Gorgeous beach like this ordinarily has people on it!

It rained a little along the way. We ended up racing to find a campground before things closed. Places like stores & restaurants tend to close at 8pm. We pulled into a camping area at 8:15. Tansy went to get fish & chips at what looked like a bar while the rest of us put up tents. This campground was a grassy field enclosed by trees & bushes. It provided nice clean bathrooms. The showers were being worked on so we were asked to use the little shack shower that belonged to a tenant there. The campground people were very apologetic & very nice to us.

Frank traded me his good mat for my bad one & said we'd each take a turn with the awful thing. He's such a gentleman.