Wellington was much bigger than we expected and it took an age for us to get out into the countryside again.
The North Island is certainly very different to the South Island and today was spent driving through green rolling countryside reminiscent of parts of New South Wales and Victoria when not in drought. Our original destination for today was to have been Whanganui but due to having a real highway to drive on with a general absence of bends, we arrived quite early but we did get to enjoy the Winter Gardens
And Virginia Lake
Opunake
We had planned to spend the night free camping in this beautiful spot but after an experience with a carload of local hooligans and a warning from one of the locals we decided to move to the lake and free camp there instead
Zig-Zag New Zealand 