Today is the first official day of autumn in New Zealand and it certainly does not feel like autumn!
We visited Katikati today - known as the "Mural Town". There are more than 40 murals, carvings and points of interest in the town telling the story of the early settlers. We walked along the Uretara Stream which was really lovely even though there was a lot of debris from the awful storm of Saturday (the main state highway had been closed for part of the day due to flooding). There were some lovely pink flowers growing along the stream and they looked like they had just shot up from nothing, no leaves and we wondered how they could have survived the rain of yesterday.
The Backpackers motel was completely washed out and had everything outside drying out.
We walked around the town looking at all the murals which are really interesting. We had bought a set of "cards" which tell the story of each mural and when it was painted and who it was painted by. There was so much to do and see we decided to leave some of it for another day. We drove down to the beach and were sorry we did not have a picnic with us as it was a lovely spot with the best kept public footpath we have ever seen.
We headed off to the Heritage Museum for lunch which was very nice but after a chat with the owner we decided to leave the museum for a "bad" day as it is all inside and looks like it could be really interesting.
We then went to visit Omokoroa which is where the ferry to Matakana Island goes from. It is really pretty. We watched the ferry dock. There must have been all of four cars and at least ten passengers on it!
We walked along the foreshore and into the George Crapp Historic Reserve which was lovely with some really mature trees. The footpath takes you along the coast and INTO people's back gardens of some of the most beautiful houses. We thought the public right of way was lovely in Katikati but this was something else. All the house owners look after the area between their gardens and the cliff edge about 16 - 20 foot and the planting was lovely and we were so glad we had wandered that way.
On the way home we pass through a village called Bethlehem and popped in to the supermarket to get some lamb chops to BBQ and go with the Spanish allioli I had found in the supermarket on Friday - yummy!
We were able to sit out on the deck for our dinner tonight - not bad for the first day of autumn!
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