From Porangahau to Herbertville

Next on the agenda was the journey from Porangahau to Herbertville. Navigating the rural roads was easy: I am now getting some use out of the GPS I bought for that trip to Hamilton I never made because of my broken arm in July.

Route 52 would seem to be an appealing route to take if you are a tourist- off the beaten track and away from busier roads, it lets you explore some more rural gems. It is still pretty 'laid back' but there are some signs that tourists are being catered for. I remember taking a 'tiki tour' many years back- quite a 'random' one without any real plan, and quite by chance I passed the place with the 'longest name'. I remember a basic yellow AA signpost that would have been easily missed. Now there is a much more obvious one!

Not much further along the road, I stopped to look at some cabbage trees - Cordyline australis- which were quite prolific in this area. And then these horses appeared and paid me some attention- not quite so easily able to ignore passing humans as their cousins in paddocks closer to cities can.

Here are a few more of the cabbage trees. The hills here look quite gentle and rolling: don't be fooled! This is prime 'earthquake' area, with the ground being regularly scrunched up as the Pacific and Australian plates do their 'meeting' nearby. Here are some recent ones reported in Geonet. And in 1990 there was a 6.2 quake centred near here that was one of the worst I have felt, strong enough even in Palmerston North to make holding onto the doorframe difficult as the floor bucked beneath me.

One final photo: I am a great fan of taking photos of some of the old rural buildings that you pass.