We headed north from Napier, and after a very scenic drive along a small secondary road, we decided to base ourselves at the Eastwood hill National Arboretum, on the outskirts of Gisborne. The Arboretum covers 131 hectares of rolling rural farmland and contains the most comprehensive collection of flora in NZ. It displays over 4000 different taxa of trees, shrubs and plants and is extremely beautiful. The Autumnal colours were spectacular, with sunlit leaves of red, orange and gold everywhere as we meandered our way along the numerous woodland paths within the park. We had a lovely peaceful relaxing day here, and believe our passengers will too, particularly as we will be staying here duringSpring and Autumn.
Not far up the road from the Arboretum is Rere Falls and the Rere rockslide, a 60 metre long natural water slide over rocks which have been ‘smoothed’ by the constant flow of the Wharekopae River over them. We were lucky enough to be there at the same time that 3 lads donned their wetsuits and grabbed their boogie boards to race down the slide and allowed us to film them! What a thrill!
CHECK OUT OUR HIGHLIGHTS FROM OUR TRIP TO GISBORNE IN THE VIDEO BELOW!
