Eastland Road Trip – Day 276

Today we’re going to be checking out the longest wharf in New Zealand as well as one of the most finest Maori churches.

This morning we are waking up in the awesome little hostel called Standard in Paradise situated in Tokomaru Bay, all the rooms have been designed so you can see that famous East Coast sunrise however the weather is not that great for watching sunrises so we just hit the road straight away.

The first stop on our Eastland road trip itinerary today is Tolaga Bay Wharf.

So we just arrived at the Tolaga bay wharf it just stopped raining like a second ago so we’re going to head all the way across the wharf.

The longest wharf in New Zealand.

The longest wharf in the world.

No.

It’s not.

Seriously guys, this wharf is super long you can barely see the end of it when you start walking on it it’s crazy it’s 660m long and we are going to be taking a lot of pit stops along the way just because we like to take a ton of pictures and because 660m just sounds like a lot of walking.

There’s surprisingly a lot to see along the way as you’re walking along this wharf. It goes alongside these huge sandy coloured cliffs which are filled with sea caves there’s archways, loads of different layers to the rock and out ahead we can see loads of different off shore islands and not to mention how vibrantly green and turquoise the water looks. This place is absolutely stunning.

It’s out sixth day here on the Tolaga Bay Wharf and we’re finally reaching the end of the wharf. We’re not really looking forward to the end of the walk the return six days cos we’re already running out of rations and food. So we’re probably going to have to hunt on the way back.

So it turns out we won’t be needing to use our rations because there’s actually a lot of fish at the end of this wharf. Tolaga Bay Wharf is a pretty popular fishing spot and we can definitely see why as we look straight into the water and see all these fish.

I think they’re really used to people coming with their sandwiches and saying aw you’re so cute.

Because there’s no barriers at the end of Tolaga Bay Wharf you can definitely see what people might do once they get to the end of the wharf on a hot day but for us it is pretty miserable and cold and rainy so we just decide to head back on this walk which apparently it takes half an hour to get to the end of the wharf and back but I think we’re walking a little faster than that.

Tolaga Bay is almost picture perfect especially if you have a non cloudy day and at sunrise it would be absolutely amazing to be able to watch the sun rising from there but we are already back on the road because we are making our way to our next destination this eastland road trip is taking us from one awesome spot to the other and the next one that we’re going to be visiting is an awesome Maori church.

The name of the church we’re going to be visiting now is St Mary’s Church but it’s commonly known as Tikitiki Church because it’s located in Tikitiki.

The Church is open to the public to visit. it’s really awesome to be able to get yourself into such an amazing place but it is closed to the public during services or weddings or stuff like that. It’s a normal church people are still going here every Sunday.

As soon as you step into the church you cannot help be being taken aback by how beautiful this church is. No matter your religion no matter your beliefs the work of art that is in this church is absolutely mind-blowing. In fact, it is very often described as one of the finest churches in the whole country.

There are beautiful carvings all over the place every single wall is jointed by a beautiful carved piece of wood and there is woven panels all over the church which are called tukutuku. Every single one of those light glasses are Maori inspired and there are beautiful flowers to compliment the whole thing. How amazing is that?

Laura and I spend a lot of time surprisingly long amount of time in fact in this church taking about a million pictures. it is absolutely picture perfect If you have the chance to travel around the east cape it is an amazing free thing to do along the way and we strongly encourage you to get there and check it out.

The Tikitiki church is one of the great free things to do on any Eastland Road trip and that’s the great thing about road tripping around the Eastland region. Most of the stops, the sights, the beaches the walks they’re all free to do so it’s the perfect place to travel if you are travelling New Zealand on a budget. But for us we are heading to our final destination for this evening which is Hicks Bay and we’re staying at the Hicks Bay Motel.