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Taupo, Waitomo and Auckland - 7th April 2009
We arrived at Taupo driving down the side of the lake the size of Singapore and found a nice camp site a few km's from town. We had a few ideas of things that we would like to do while we were there but the tighter money situation had resulted in the delaying (or permanently cancelling) the Skydive I had planned, and only left enough cash in the budget for a boat cruise to see some Maori carvings and a Segway tour that we had hoped to do in Wellington but didn't get chance. With both of those pencilled in for the next day we decided on a stroll round the town to get our bearings and within an hour or so of looking round shops and trying to explain to Jemma that I didn't want a bag the same as her handbag even if it was in black, we then practically walked into Ross and Kylie (who we met in Kaikoura) on the street. This rescued me successfully from the whole Man Bag debate and we went on to arranging to meet them later that night.
As I said, we had decided to fill the afternoon riding on giant cotton reels, or Segway as they are known, but after a couple of phone calls we were told that the tours only run on weekends. Disappointed to have missed out again on this new form of transport, we relaxed and ate back at the camp site before meeting Ross and Kylie for a drink. They had pitched up on a really nice free site that unfortunately we didn't know about but we gained the free benefits by sitting with them for a couple of hours and having a good go at putting the world to rights between us.
After such a nice evening we agreed to meet up with them again the next day and started it off with a burst of activity with a couple of hours' walk to the Huka falls and back. These are more horizontal rapids than falls really, and are caused by the river being reduced from a 100m wide and 4m deep to a 10m wide and 10m deep ravine. As you can imagine this increases the pressure somewhat and causes the falls.
Worn out after all that effort, our reward on our return was soaking in a free hot spa, which was in fact a thermal stream that ran into the river. It was ideal as it had two of the main ingredients we now looked for: low activity and low cost. It was actually a strange sensation as the hot water from the stream floated on the cold water of the river so if you moved too far from the stream your top half was still hot, up to about 40 degrees, and your feet got really cold. We were still surprised to find little natural quirks like this and were even more surprised someone hadn't started charging.
We were going to move on that day but after seeing the free campsite and enjoying meeting up with our friends we decided on another night in Taupo, but did move to the free site instead of the $30 one we were on before. That night Ross, ably assisted by Kylie and Jemma, cooked up a lovely Butter Chicken and rice followed by crackers and cheese while I did a fantastic job of washing up. The evening was as lovely as the previous one, only this time fuelled by a surprisingly good bottle of $5 wine.
After saying our goodbyes and agreeing to meet up back in the UK sometime, we hit the road once more. Our final New Zealand destination was the Waitiomo caves. The caves are apparently a wonderland of glow worms and underground rafting. Unfortunately I cannot comment on this as events transpired against us and we never made it to see them...
We arrived at a camp site about 10km away from the caves and pitched up as normal. No problems at this point, and being a Saturday I sloped off to watch a bit of the sport on TV in the kitchen and Jemma had a bit of a nap. Just as I was about to get to an exciting bit of the re run of the last weeks grand prix, Jemma ran in looking very concerned and told me I had to come back to the van quickly. On arriving back at our Spaceship I realise that Jemma has not gone mad, as the story of the exploding sun roof was true. After talking to a few people during the time after it had broken it seems that, unbeknown to us, we had had a stone chip in the sunroof. The damp cold nights, combined with this chip, had reduced the glass strength and the glass had given way, in a big way, while it was sitting in the sun. All Jemma knew about it was a big bang and glass everywhere on the roof and outside.
After a phone call to the Spaceships people we realised that the only thing excluded from the insurance cover was... Yep, the sunroof, meaning, apart from cleaning out the glass and giving the spaceship a tidy, we spent the rest of the Saturday and all of the Sunday worrying about the cost of replacement, although our faith in human kindness was fully restored when several of our neighbours on the campsite pitched in to help us out. For example, one chap lent us a big plastic box so that we could get rid of the glass safely, another couple lent us a waterproof blanket to cover the roof overnight (and later got us more than a bit merry with some red wine and whisky, but that's another story), and a guy from a local glass company came and had a look (on a Saturday afternoon in a small village!) to diagnose for sure what the cause was and help us clear out the worst of the glass.
Slightly hungover and still none the wiser about how much extra cash we needed, we headed back to Auckland with a 'taped bin liner to roof' car adjustment in place and flapping wildly, back to our original hostel from two months ago. Spaceships were ok about it when we dropped it off - it did cost us $350 through no fault of our own but, it could have cost more (it was a big sunroof over the whole of the back roof). In the end we were sorry to let trusty FLAP go, but time had come to relinquish our wheels. Our last day in New Zealand we took a bus, oh the hardship, into the city, had a look round and picked up a few last minute bits ready for the next place - we even forgot to take the camera with us in our rush to get everything packed and ready, so we can't even show you what it looks like, and our only impressions are of multiple bookshops (we were after a hard-to-get guidebook), camping shops (a cash-carrying belt) and chemists (a top up on various off-the-shelf remedies) - although we are pleased to report that all of those places that we mentioned on Queen Street were friendly, helpful and did the job.
We fly to Chile now for the next chapter. Goodbye English speaking world, we will miss you...
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