#opotiki

Motu Rd Trail

Part of the Motu Cycle Trail, this is the route taken to get to the start of the Pakihi Track which is downhill only.As you climb the road it narrows and becomes rougher and is easier to ride than drive. Team this up with the Dunes Trail and Pakihi...

view more trail info & map

Well, I am getting ready to leave New Zealand and for the last few weeks I have been lazing around in beach towns and enjoying the summer. In between a heavy schedule of body boarding, reading and driving along singing to Dolly Parton, I managed to get to a great little local museum in Opotiki. 

I wasn’t expecting much when I visited, but I like to support these kinds of places so I assumed I would pay my $10, mooch around for about an hour and that would be it, however I ended up spending my entire morning there. For a local museum, it’s pretty big (2 floors and a mezzanine level) and while its collections are unsurprisingly eclectic, the volunteers have done a great job of tying everything together to give you an understanding of the history of the town and the people that have shaped it. 

They have lots of vehicles and farm machinery on the ground floor with easy to understand explanations on how they were used. Every nook has something in it and has been given its own theme, so they never fall into the trap of just putting all the stuff out and hoping for the best that a lot of small museums do.

The mezzanine level is devoted almost entirely to photographs and these give a great flavour of the life of the town as many of them have great little anecdotes alongside them.

The top floor has a lot of local Maori carving, a really nice little First World War exhibit and then 12 mini rooms which chart the life of the town from settlers travelling over on ships to the present day.

I’m really glad I took the time to visit as this was one of the best small museums I’ve been to in NZ.