Back to North Island

Arrived back in Wellington Jan 1. Decided it looked interesting enough to play there for a day instead of heading up the coast. Stayed in Nomads on Wakefield, right downtown. Next day did the main museum (Te Papa). Stayed in there all day, which was just as well because it stormed most of the day. Very windy, occaisional rain.









Finally departed ~7PM; drove to Bulls, then north toward Tuapea. Parked the rest of the night in Hunterville's Queen's park. Delightful little place, with a one person suspension bridge and walk through a native plantings area. Also a nice quiet place to park for the night.

Next day drove past Mt Doom (Mt Ruarha) but she was hiding in the clouds.
Spent most of the day in touristy Taupea.
The chemist on the corner of the main drag and Hwy 1 is friendly and helpful. (see "The Thumb of Robert") Then drove on to Auckland, via Hamilton. The road from Hamilton to Auckland is like driving Hwy 99 Eugene to Portland. Most of the way 2 lanes through towns, but very little traffic. Stopped at a riverside park in Meremere (or maybe Mercer) along the way and reconfigured from car to airport travel. Left a lot of stuff with people passing through the park - may they use it well and pass it on.

Ace car rental doesn't have staff at the airport, but the Info desk person knew what to do - mostly. A friendly security person directed us to the 2nd floor for a quiet place to camp, where we had lots of company - some quite well prepared with sheets, blankets and pillows. We just have our bivy sacks and pillows.








Ah yes, a word about the bivy sacks. These are just about the coolest thing you can carry in your pack besides a towel. In fact a towel, a bivy sacks and a spare pair of socks are probably all you need. The sack, which is available from Red-E-Supply(.com) comes in a little yellow bag about 6 inches long and 3 inches in diameter. It weighs just a few ounces. It's made of mylar bonded to some cloth-like material (tyvek?) that makes them quite tear resistant. There are velcro closures half way down one side and across the top, plus a foot vent. Once inside one of these you'll stay warm almost anywhere. We used ours frequently while camping in the car, in airports, on trains and ferrys. They are so warm that most of the time we just unrolled it and threw it over ourselves, rather than crawling in. Definitely a "must keep" item in our ever-shrinking travel kit.

When you sleep in the airport, you still have to allow for a couple hours to get through seat assignment, baggage repacking (new rule: 22kg max/passenger), security, customs, immigration, the vegetable police, breakfast, etc, etc. We almost missed our flight save for the "above and beyond" effort of a NZed Air counter person, may she be forever blessed.