Almost aptly named as we’ve been motoring all day to get here.
We were up fairly early. Did some last minute internet stuff including backing up my computer with the last of our paid for megabytes. We got off the boat without too much hassle with help from Frank / Tahina which was very appreciated. As ever, we forgot a couple of last minute things and had to turn around in the river to sort them out.
We were on our way south shortly after 8. The roads ran smoothly and we had few hold ups with only one near stop in the depth of Auckland. Trusting the GPS to go the best route (I don’t know why given some of our past luck) we were eventually on roads we had not traveled before. We stopped for lunch at a town called Matamata which turned out, by chance from our perspective, to be the place where they filmed Hobiton for the Lord of the Rings movie. We’d have liked to seen where the filming took place but we did not have the time. We bought and shared a $15 fish and chips meal which was so huge it eventually became our evening meal too.
Soon we were back on the same road we’d come north on from Rotorua with the boys. The GPS obviously had a mind of it’s own and maybe it was best to avoid the main road. We certainly didn’t have too much traffic the way we went.
SE of Rotorua we were again on virgin (for us) roads. State Highway soon become a gravel track meandering through forested mountains. At one point we were 3,000ft above sea level. When we reached Lake Waikaremoana the afternoon was wearing on but the low lighting made for a great view. We stopped to take a couple of pictures.
The wet weather of the past couple of days is now behind us so we found the ground dry and amenable to putting up our tent in the campsite. We brought the micro tent as well as our big one. As we’re staying here for two nights the big one came out.
We had a quick walk to stretch our legs before microwaving the rest of the fish and chips in the communal kitchen. There is no internet here nor any phone service. I’m trying to troubleshoot why I can no longer use the internet via my phone but I can’t even try that here. If you’re reading this blog this has all happened a few days ago.
The lake is the site of one of New Zealand’s ‘Great Hikes’ but it’s a multi-day hike and we don’t have the time. Insttead, tomorrow (Thursday) we plan to hike the Ruapani Circuit which should take us approximately 6 hours and wear off some of the weight we need to lose.