We woke to a beautiful morning in Cai Be.
After a 2 hour bus trip from Ho Chi Minh City we boarded our cruise boat, had a pleasant lunch then relaxed before setting off in the late afternoon, upriver towards Phnom Penh. The Mekong River here is over 1km wide with two road bridges spanning it. Over the border in Cambodia the river is over 3km wide. The water is brown, a bit like the Yarra, and when it floods provides very fertile land for growing rice and tropical fruits, as well as various exotic fruits brought in by the French in the 19th century.
Our last day before flying home tomorrow. We took the ferry across the bay to the town of Russell. Russell was the first capital of New Zealand button is now a quiet town full of grand of houses and a few tourist types shops and eateries.
Todaybwe visited Waitangi the site of the signing of the treaty between the British and the Maori people. There is a national park set aside to commemorate this significant moment in NZ history. There's also a beautiful golf course on the headland above the site and a small waterfall over the headland.
It's Sunday but not sunny. Light but constant rain puts a damper on the day. But we decide to go to the local church anyway. Australians make up 6 of the ten people in the congregation but the service is almost the same as an Australian Anglican service so that was fine. The rest of the day was a chance to recover from a few days of long road trips.
Devcich historic farmstead. Lots of animals and exotic birds to see and a waterhole to swim in with beautiful sunny weather to enjoy.
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After a couple of quiet days in Gisborne we drove to Thames at the south of the Coromandel Peninsula where we're now in an historic farmhouse. It actually took us 9 hours to go about 350km as the road through Waioeka Gorge was washed away in a few places a couple of weeks ago so we had to wait 3 and a half hours for a convoy of cars and trucks to be ushered along the highway. That plus countless other places with roadworks in progress meant we lost close to 5 hours.
3 hour drive along more winding roads through the hills, up and down, coping with huge trucks carrying timber in both directions. Gisborne is the first place in NZ visited by Captain Cook in 1769.
Today we visited the Napier Museum. On the way we stopped to watch the Billy Cart Derby in the main street with categories by age of builder and driver - all under 12.
The Museum has a large exhibit around the 7.8 earthquake that hit on Feb 3 1931. There was a documentary made in the 90s with people recounting their memories of the quake. Very moving. There was also a room where you could expedience something of the feel of an earthquake, though not nearly as badly as the real thing.
There was also a section on Maori history.
