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Back to Whitianga
Popped the hire car back and set up camp at Cats Pyjamas. Spent the next few days waiting for our car to be mended. Agony. We just wanted to get on with the travelling.
On the sunday we spent ages writng journal enteries for this site (riveting) and on the Monday we took a lovely long walk to Cooks beach and Shakespeares Lookout. Cooks beach was where Captain James Cook first landed in NZ. A great view was had from the lookout all the way around Mercury Bay. Took the little ferry back across the river to Whitianga. Picked up the car the next day only to fork out the bill of $600. great. The guy told us to 'keep an eye on the water' as the car was still leaking. great job!
Back on the road
Now with our rediscovered freedom we were happy and set off to the Bay of Plenty where we would seek work and have more carefree times...or so we thought. Stopped off for lunch at a lovely beach in Opoutere. Had sand in our sandwiches and eveything we owned as the wind blew. Had to wash, yes i say WASH, ALL of our food when we arrived in the hostel.
Anyway, making good headway to Tauranga when disaster strikes. Emma looks down to see car is overheated steam coming from the bonnet...oh b*****!!! Pull over to check it out and let it cool down; attempt to help cooling down process by pouring water over engine!!! It just evaporated in seconds though. After trying to kid ourselves that everything would be ok and that we were obviuosly skilled enough in mechanics to deal with anything......we swallowed our pride and rang the AA(who we had sensibly got recovery with). We didn't have the better membership to get taken to our destination though and so were taken back to the nearest town; Waihi.
The guy at the garage there was so nice he told us it as it was but was really helpful. Basically the car was b*****ed the head gasgett had blown and so at the best we were talking $1000 to fix. He knew we really wanted to get onto Tauranga though and so said that he wouldn't necassarily recommend it but if we took lots of water and kept stopping we could probably get there. So off we went with 20 litres of water and coolant that the nice guy had put in our car for us.(there are some nice mechanics in NZ). So as we both have alot of pride and think we can do anything off we set. We stopped and started filling her up along the way. Managed to just get to our hostel for the night; Apple Tree Cottage.
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