Check out and head to The Kiosk for two coffees

Park up in town to have a look about a bank account; no luck so grab some cash out and wander to Subway for a footlong meatball sub with lots of salad with another coffee

On the road to Tolaga Bay – wharf is actually closed today as trees are being felled and the Cook’s Cove Walkway that takes you to the Hole in the Wall is closed due to lambing

We drive to the town to get another view of the bay

Because the route around the outside of the east side of the island would take us an extra couple hours, we head back to Gisborne to use the 2 highway

Along the way, we notice there’s a waterfall off from the town Matawai so we take it to have a little nature detour

Again, the roads aren’t greatly maintained but we make it to Motu Falls

A swing bridge takes you over to some forest which is noted to be a kiwi zone

The path’s a bit muddy so we go for about 20 minutes and then turn back to continue the drive

A little further on, we have another break at Oponae Bridge before making the final descent to Ōhope

We know there’s some cooking facilities where we’re staying so pop to a New World supermarket and then reach Aquarius Motel

The sun’s going down as we get checked in and there’s access to Ōhope Beach just at through the back of the motel so we wander over and catch the cloudy sunset with a view of Moutohora (whale) Island

The sand has a combination of lighter / grey and black sand with the black sand being volcanic rock

We get back to our motel room and cook some dinner

Thai green curry with spaghetti instead of noodles (as we couldn’t find any in the supermarket we visited)

We finish and watch A Few Good Men on the telly before bed