Round North Island - Gisborne

We got up in the morning on our first day in Gizzy and planned to wander into town and get some breakfast, then go for a walk up the main street to have a look about. While Owen had been here he hadn't really seen the sights, his last trip consisted more of trying to repair a broken Dulcinea. 



Danielle & Amy had been sending us texts of Gisborne must sees and dos, where to go and where not to go. So on Danielle's advice we headed to Cafe 1874 (Poverty Bay Gentlemens Club) for a coffee and a spot of breakfast. After that we headed down the road for a look, I spotted a bookshop that took my fancy and we headed in. Oh My Gosh I would come back to Gisborne just for this book shop (oh and maybe the sushi place nearby) Muirs Bookshop is just this amazing little gem, its got a great selection and something about it was just so inviting... we spotted a cafe upstairs that we noted to come back to check out later.

Gladstone Road - Main St in Gisborne

After being dragged out the bookshop we carried on our walk, ending up in Hunting and Fishing Gisborne, we wandered around looking at the huge amount of fishing stuff. As we hadnt had too much luck so far with our fishing we decided to ask for their opinion. Owen and I are more of passive fishers, we chuck the lines in with whatever lure takes our fancy at the time... we dont really have a clue about what we should be doing but we did know that there was something not working properly as we shouldnt really be losing that many lures! We told them the Christchurch store had set us up with 100lb trace, they scoffed at us, apparently they wouldnt recommend anything lighter than 300lb. The lady took us around and helped us pick a couple of new Rapalla lures and a cool bungy fishing line with a squid lure on it. Then a man (who turned out to be her husband that had just popped in to see her on his lunch break) attached our new lures to some 320lb trace all set up with clips and swivells. The team there were so super helpful, so much more than we have had experience with in the past. Owen and I were excited to cast out the new lures and see how they went! Wonder if we would have hauled in that Marlin with our new set up?


Pete (Amys Dad) called us and apologised he wouldn't be able to meet us to take us for a drive about, his office had been flooded in the rain last night and his day had pretty much gone to pot. Danielles parents (who are cruisers) had picked some fresh avocados from their tree and were going to bring them to her dads office for us to pick up that evening. So we headed over to find Colvins to go say hello. We turned up and Laurie soon whisked us off into the back of the office to find out about what we had been doing, what the boat set up was, what the plan was, tell us about their boat and show us a whole heap of cool electronics. When Anna arrived we were invited for dinner so we headed back to the boat to get changed and grab a hunk of albacore tuna from our recent catch before Laurie picked us up after he closed up at the office. 

We headed up to their house and had a yummy meal and chatted about their experiences cruising (they try and spend the NZ winter cruising, last season was Fiji) and Laurie's work with the communications team for Americas Cup in San Fran and Anna's volunteering work there. Owen and Laurie started talking technical, electronics and mapping. So Anna showed me photos of some of their cruising in the Islands and Australia. We had a nice evening meeting them, it always amazes me when you meet other cruisers, it always seems like age is really no barrier and you just get on and chat over a mutual understanding of being on the water (Bahamas crew I'm talking about you).

We had planned to leave Gisborne on the 22nd but after talking to Laurie he told us we should wait a couple more days in his opinion Cook Strait wouldn't be any good till about the 26th of Jan, he thought it would be best to wait till the 24th until heading out. We figured who are we to not take the advice of a seasoned offshore sailor. This gave us another couple of days to hang out in Gisborne.

Day 2 we wandered back up the main street to find somewhere to cut Owens mop of hair, we had taken the razor so I could do it on route but I didn't feel it was appropriate to cut it at the marina and his hair go allover the place. Before long we found a walk in place that was $10 for a hair cut (you cant find $10 haircuts that often in Christchurch anymore). After Owen had been trimmed we went for another walk about, headed down to beach to look around. It was a beautiful spot! We had been told it was a must to head for a walk up Kaiti Hill but with the heat neither of felt up to it. Amy's dad had still thought he may take us for a drive up there anyway so we didn't worry too much about it.

Waikanae Beach
Young Nick Statue
We got a message that Anna had dropped off a bag of avocados freshly picked from their tree back at their office for us so we headed back up there to say hello and get that. Laurie took us down for a walk to show us their boat - Lauren C. He gave us the tour pointing out all the amendments he has made over the years to make it a good offshore cruiser. Owen got some real jealousy over their hard top dodger! It was really cool to look through and see it and know the kind of miles they had done in her. We then took Laurie over to Dulcinea for him to see our little floating home away from home.

We had thought about leaving from Gisborne on the 23rd and popping round to Napier for a night before heading off for Marlborough Sounds, but we thought better of ourselves and figured for the extra miles and short stop off it wasn't really worth it. We headed back into town did some supermarket shopping, headed to buy a few bits and bobs like a new tackle box for our shiny new lures and had anther look around Muirs Bookshop :)

We cast off the lines just after 9am on the 24th and left our final stop on our trip circumnavigating the North Island. It was sad - I really enjoyed Gisborne and I would love to come back and have a proper look around as there are a lot of places that we didn't get to check out.

Motoring out of Poverty Bay behind a huge ship full of logs.
Read about the next leg of our journey

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