How could you resist going down a road called “Gentle Annie”…. we couldn’t!

It travels inland between Gisborne and Wairoa 100 kms. It is a winding road through beautiful rural scenery. Here is a flavour of what we saw. As per usual there were not enough stopping areas to view and admire the lovely steep valleys gorges and also white cliffs then rolling hills.

It was forecast for rain and the skies were grey all day with hints of blue now and then.

As we got near a lake area called Tiniroro ( don’t you just love the place names!), it began to rain huge drops of water but there was also bright sunshine. The rain was glistening and quite magical to see. We rounded a bend and were so surprised to see a beautiful rainbow with very low arch that seemed to touch the hill and treetops. We jumped out of the car to grab our cameras before it disappeared. Luckily we were able to stop off the road.

Next was the waterfall Te Reinga Falls. Well named because it was raining so much we carried on to Fraser Town… not a town just a few houses and a shop and toilets.

At Wairoa, we had pancakes for lunch Otis and Xavi! Its the first pancakes weve found since pancake day. Grandma and Grandad loved your photos and talking messages of your pancakes and world book day costumes. Thankyou xxx We had pancakes with bananas, maple syrup, bacon and icecream

It stopped raining so we returned to the Te Reinga water fall. You walk a short way down a hill to view the top of it. It sounded very loud and you could see it was a great fall. There was no safe way to get to the bottom. There was an unmarked path that steeply descended but grandad said it was muddy and then turned to steep scree stones so unsafe.

We enjoyed the way back along the same route to our motel. We have passed many farms along Gentle Annie Road and it was a good journey.

Back in Gisborne we have monsoon rain. Wellington has had to cancel the cricket test series, Black caps vrs Bangladesh, because of the torrential rain and now its moved over to here!

So hopefully a film night on NZ tonight and wine and cheese with crisps, we know how to live it up xxxx

That is a bird of prey, best I could do from the car!