Alright, we’ll start off with the elephant in the room first.  Those wheels.  As noted in Pt. 1, when I bought this car, one of the rims had a crack in it.  That cracked rim, after a week of spirited driving, was now leaking air fairly steadily.  My search on Trademe.com, local to Wellington, came up with these golden beauties for short money.  With my time in this country limited to less than six months, I felt I could live with such a bold look for such a short time.  The background is the point of this post, let’s focus.

Cape Palliser is a promontory, with lighthouse, on the southernmost part of New Zealand’s North Island.  The road to get there is nothing short of jaw dropping.  A couple hours time from Wellington, I took the same path over the Rimutakas as last time, on Route 2, and then a hard right in Featherston on Route 53, toward Martinborough.  Martinborough being in a big wine region, I figured I can stock up the house while on this journey – two birds.  The road to Martinborough was not that long, but a nice two lane winding road through mostly the greenest of green pastures.
 

Martinborough itself turned out to be a cool little lunch spot.  I used the public library to transfer some cash into my checking account, had my standard meat pie for lunch, and left the wine purchases for later.  Oh, and it turns out that this town is the Home of Thunderpants, something most noteworthy, that to this day I still know nothing about.  There is the Silver Lion, parked with it’s bling gold wheels, in front of the wine shop, where I did some scouting for later on.

Lake Ferry Road heads right out of Martinborough, and this is where the scenery hit “Holy s*%*” levels.  As you approach the ocean, the fields are day glow green, and the population drops off to the point where companionship is pretty much a gaggle of sheep ( which may be spot on for some folks).

After turning on Cape Palliser Road, the ocean comes into view and I actually had to get out of the car and just stare for a while.  It’s dumbfounding, and once again, no blocks of apartment buildings or modular homes as far as the eye can see.  Ahead were lots of curves, lots of straights, mostly pavement, then some dirt.  The Subaru was eating it up.

Here are the waterfront residents.  Cows.  They had no gated driveways, or security detail.  No nine bedroom marble mansions, or glass skyscraper apartments littering the landscape.  Just cows, and they were just hanging out in front of a perfect ocean scene.  Brilliant.

Talk about open road.  I got to stretch the Subaru’s legs on this jaunt – no cars passed either way and no cows jumped in the way, that would have been a day ender – death by burger.

Fifth gear.  Large turbo making that awesome 747 sound.  On the way back, I took it easy and actually got to enjoy the ocean view.

After that rocket spell, I came across the only small town along this road, Ngawi.  Small, as in all of it is located in the photo below.

The folks in the Ngawi pulled the best macho move I have ever seen, instead of massive 4x4s to pull their boats from the ocean, they used old bulldozers.  You don’t get much more of a bitchin’ scene than a row of vintage bulldozers along an amazing ocean front.

If you wanna make sure you can retrieve your boat when it comes in, buy a David Brown.


 
Conditions along this route go from nice, smooth, and open, to crumbling mess with a brook running through it.  If you see road cones in New Zealand, chances are a part of the road has now slid off into the abyss.  Take heed, Kiwis don’t put down warnings way out here unless absolutely necessary.

Once you get past Ngawi, the road gets thinner, and turns to gravel.  Next stop is Cape Palliser itself.

Fur seals camp along the water front on this stretch before reaching the end of the road.

Where the road ends, there is a small parking lot.  From there is a short hike to get over to the bottom of the lighthouse steps.  At this point I was hoping that thin white line was some kind of escalator or catapult device.

Jeez.  The lighthouse ascent consists of 250 steps to the top.  This was a pipe hittin’ climb to the lower half of the body, but the views from the top were outstanding.

With my legs on fire, I reached the top, which allowed views of the hike down to the point, where a fur seal colony is located and off to the right, the road that I came in on from Ngawi.   Once again, no hotels, no condos, just awesome.


Going back down those freakin’ steps was no picnic either, and as I hobbled to my car I made a deal with myself, one last stop on the ocean front, and then it’s off to meet hops and barley.

 
The road’s edge on my return – left side is like a torn sheet of loose leaf.

The final stop on the water front, before the sore legged drive back to Martinborough, for some wine stock, and Garage Project IPA.
Next outing, I bring my man, Chris Moss. and his trusted steed Henri.  We dumb around on Route 1 headed up toward Mt. Taranaki, and push the Subaru’s beach capabilities.
Thanks again New Zealand, your drives are nothing short of majestic.