Tāwharanui

Day 10, Thursday 31 August 2017

Tāwharanui Regional Park is a lovely place, but the road to it used to be quite rough with gravel sections and potholes, making it a less attractive destination for motorcyclists on big road bikes. I knew the road was being sealed this year, so I went to see what progress was being made. All the road is sealed now except for the last four kilometres, and that should be finished in the next month. At present that last stretch has some pretty ugly gravel areas, and there were lots of steamrollers, graders, diggers and water trucks all moving erratically, which made it an unpleasant experience.

Tāwharanui is beautiful as always. A predator-proof fence allows for lots of native birds. In particular, I saw lots of pūkeko wandering around.

When I headed home an hour later, the road workers had finished for the day, with their massive vehicles parked at the side of the road or driven away, and the gravel didn’t seem nearly so bad!