We had a long days driving ahead of according to the map and we planned to take a more central road and cut off some of the east coast as the drive would have been far too long to go all the way around. So we left at 7am and Whakatane was the target for lunch time. The road started pretty windy but eventually turned into a nice flat road and we had expected a boring drive but I don?t think New Zealand is capable of a boring drive. The police had a road block around about 2 hours into the journey but they were checking licenses and doing routine stuff so we quickly passed through and continued our journey. We arrived in Whakatane earlier than expected as the roads were easy to drive on so we caught up with our emails in an Internet café and got a drink. It was too early for lunch so we decided to cut in land and take the quicker road to gain some time, we didn?t know what to expect of the road but it ended up following a large river though a massive gorge called the Waioeka which was again just stunning too drive. We arrived in Gisbourne around 1.30pm which was a hell of a lot earlier than expected and even though it?s not the prettiest of towns we decided to explore what they had to offer, so we visited the scenic lookout overlooking Gisbourne and we also visited the site where Captain Cook first found New Zealand back in the 1700?s. We had a nice motorcamp on the beach and we enjoyed the view until the sun went down and we decided instead of cooking we?d have some fish & chips from the local chippy and watched a film whilst eating.