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30/7/9 River valley to Wanganui
Phil woke up early to meet up with the rafting crew to see if the trip was going ahead. They had to await a decision on the water levels as it had rained heavily all night long. It was decided that the trip was on but lots of the people booked to go had been up all night drinking and only turned up at 9 .30!!! not impressed. The rafting trip was 20 km down the Rangitikei river down 10 grade 4-5 rapids as well as lots of smaller ones. A couple of them were too dangerous to take the raft through so they all walked around them as the raft went through empty . As part of the trip they had to take a leap into the water from a 5 meter rock...good job liz wasn't there she would have bottled out of that.
the end of the trip came down the river past the lodge so Liz could take some video of the last few minutes. Phil had a great time but was starving when he got back and tucked into yummy cold Pizza!!!! Once back in the bus the skies finally cleared and it was a great days weather so we could see the scenery we hadn't seen through the mist the day before. There were lots of deer in the fields on the route which are farmed heavily in NZ. The coach stopped in the town of Bulls where we were met by another friend of Phils from home Neil . Bulls is quite a funny little town which has a laugh with its name. Many of the town shops etc have special signs with names on eg the police station is called Consta-bulls, the pharmacy is called dispense-abull, the school is called knowledge-abull, the tiolets relieve-abull, doctors was cure-abull and so it goes on. We heard on the local news that the local council didn't like the design for the new public toilets that were in the shape of a bulls a**e !!! funny that. Phil said how great to use them as he could say he'd had a bulls**t!!! Neil lives in Wanganui and emigrated with wife Jo and two boys Owen and Bryn 7 years ago. They moved to Wangers from Auckland area 3 years ago and love it. Neil drove us the hours drive to Wangers passing through lots of lovely farm land. Bryn was with us for the drive and Phil hadn't seen him since he was really tiny. We called into the local supermarket to pick up some drinks before going to Neil and Jos house where we were staying overnight and Liz was introduced to Jo. Owen was out at football practice and we met him once Jo had been to collect him. He is over 6 foot tall and only 12!!!! We had a lovely night and jo made us beef stew with dumplings and veggies must to our delight and we had lots of chat and catching up before we dropped into bed. Neil and Jo invited us to stay another night so we could see Wanganui and Neil offered to drive us into Wellington instead of catching the Kiwi bus the next morning as planned which was great.
31/7/9 Wanganui After seeing the boys off to school Neil took us on a tiki tour of Wangers. We passed by Bryns school which has a farm in the middle of it for the children, then drove past the school at which Jo teaches. Neil took us to a viewpoint over Wanganui with a lookout tower but said not to climb up it as there was a bit of Wanganui he wanted us to see first so we jumped back into the car and he drove is down into the lower part of the town where there is a lift back to the top and the tower. The lift is really old built in 1919 and is still in the original condition with a attendant and tickets!!! It took us up to the higher level where we then climbed the tower to take a lookout over Wanganui. The town sits on a river and you could see the West coast and the river. Neil took us through some of the parks and the boys brilliant football facilities, a deer park and to the beach which was strewn with driftwood and had great waves in the winter sun. We then went into Wanganui for some lunch before heading back towards home via the butchers. Neil and Phil collected Bryn from school where Phil met Wilbur the school pig. Jo arrived home from work and put a roast dinner on and we all looked at Neils photos on the computer. He is working on a technique to improve photo depth using the computer and the images were really fantastic. he has done some brilliant photos and we were both really amazed at how good they were. Jo served up a yummy roast and huge plum crumble....fantastic . After a few hours chatting and a few more glasses of wine we went to bed.
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