Sunset over Mahia Beach
The east coast is dry and hot, just like the east coast of the South Island, for the same climactic reasons. As I drove up the coast the sun blasted down, making the incredibly winding road almost pleasant, even though it was pretty hard to look at anything with right-angle bends every few metres and serious drops on either side of the road.
In fact, all I remember of driving north from Napier to Mahia is the hot sun and the excellent company of a couple of hitchhikers whom I took to Wairoa, where we hung around by the river and had lunch while they gleefully told me of the natural marijuana growing all round this area.
The trippy skies of Mahia
My original plan had been to drive all around the East Cape, the landmass that juts east out of the North Island, but seeing the nature of the road and how long it was taking to get anywhere, I decided to hang around on the beach instead. The two hitchers recommended Mahia Beach on a little peninsula that juts south from the northern end of Hawke Bay, and realising that local knowledge is better than any number of guidebooks, I struck south for Mahia. The hitchers were right: Mahia Beach is a little paradise.
It's also one of the few places on the east coast where you get a sunset across the sea: because the peninsula juts south and Mahia Beach is on the western side of the peninsula, the sun sets into the sea, which is always a bonus. As I sat on the beach staring at the strange cloud formations that make New Zealand's sky so unique, I felt completely at ease, the sort of feeling that you can only get when everything goes right. I might not have explored the East Cape, but it all turned out well anyway.
