So after a few days of being relatively in land we are heading back to the sea, although to be honest in this country you are never very far away form the sea. So after another wonderful but far too filling breakfast we packed up the car and set off for Marokopa to visit the Mangapohue Natural Bridge which is actually a cave that has collapsed and just left a bridge over the gorge, it was a bit of a challenge getting Chris over quite a bouncy bridge but it was worth it. Our next stop was Marokopa Falls which are very spectacular they are 43 metres high and very fast flowing, we stood looking at them for quite some time then it was time to get back in the car and head off to Waikawau Tunnel which Liz had told us about, apparently it is tall enough for a man to drive his cattle through on horseback although quite why they wanted to take the cows through to a beach anyway is beyond me! A quick search of google when we got to the hotel answered the question, which is this tunnel is the only publicly accessible part of the coastline between Marokopa and Awakino (almost 60 kilometres apart by road). The tunnel was made in 1911 by three men armed only with picks and shovels. It was constructed so cattle could be driven to and from Nukuhakare Station which is on the hills above the tunnel. The farm is hilly and it was easier to drive the cattle along the beach than across the rough terrain. The beach gave us our first view of the black sand beaches which this area is known for, and it is very black. We had our lunch then continued down more ‘back’ roads to New Plymouth, our final stop was at the three sisters which are made up of layers of papa mudstone and sandstone, the rock stacks slowly ‘die’ as they are worn down by wave and wind erosion but the same action causes new ‘sisters’ to be created. We walked along the beach fascinated by yet more black sand, yet again perfect timing as we got back into the car to set off for the hotel just as it started raining so we decided against doing the walk around the beach that we had thought we might do we will do it tomorrow when hopefully it will be nice weather.
