Wide Open Spaces

I spent yesterday not doing very much and bemoaning the loss of my planned weekend. I did go out and do a few local geocaches - with mixed success, but not a lot else. Today I was up early so after a chat with Claire I packed up my lunch and went out. No real plan except to head east because that was where the sun was this weekend. I ended up on a Hawkes Bay beach (Kairakau) where I dipped my toes in the sea, ate my lunch and had a read of my guide book. This talked about the mountain ranges and I though why not? I checked out the map and worked out the road to take and set off. The book was actually talking about some mountains inland from further round Hawkes Bay so I didn't cross the ones in the book but I had a good drive anyway. The road went from Hastings to Turangi and as I started on the road it said 'no fuel for 142kms'. What it didn't say was that there was no anything for 142kms! The road started off very good and passed through rolling hills moving up to forested mountains. All very nice to look at. Before long it became an 'unsealed' road - my first experience of them here. Compared to those we have encountered in Greece these were childs play - although some bits did have quite a lot of loose gravel which made for some slipping round the bends! In all 142kms I think I saw not more than a couple of dozen cars and even less houses. The vast majority of it was just miles and miles of wide open spaces. Top travelling! In all today I drove over 500kms and have seen sun, rain, sea, mountains and everything in between. Unfortunately it's back to work tomorrow!