Water Water Everywhere
So it's now 7pm friday 12th. We got back from our scenic and for some eventfull tour an hour or so ago. We went South from Auckland hugging the coast around the Coromandel as far as Whakatane (remember what I said about WH sounding like F!!) then into the centre of the Island to lake Taupo and back to Auckland. Digs were on the whole pretty good and run at about $90-100 per night for a room or $130ish for a two bed apartment and at $2.50 to the pound seemed ok.
One of the reasons for going down the coast was to look up an old friend from Purton who moved out to Ohope Beach about 3-4 months ago with his wife Sue. Fergi was a flight engineer from Lyneham when we first met him as a biker many moons ago. He married Sue (an Aussy but we won't hold that against her) (especially as he now has this site address and is probably reading this as well as you) They have an apartment on Ohope beach but have done a one year house swap with Fergi's place in Purton. It's not a pleasent place to visit especially as they have a whole road and 20mtrs of grass between them and the beach, and the prospect of having two wet bathrooms to clean just filled me with horror. Town for them is just over the hill, which is busy falling into the sea and the Volcano 15 miles off shore is active !! I really do envy them their current lifestyle. What they do at the end of the year is still an unwritten chapter but will probably involve extensive European travel I suspect.
Sometime around this part of the journey Rose managed to find the only venomous creature in NZ which promptly bit her on the toe!! We think it was a Katipo which is related to the Australian Redback and the Black Widow!! so an hour or so yesterday was spent finding out how good the NZ NHS is! Rose now rattles with pills and has a vague ointment smell about her but all else seems ok again.
Taupo this morning was spent retrieving Pumice stone from the beach (better than sweets for colleagues (and free)) and trying to get a hole in one on a floating green moored in the lake. I hit the green 3 times out of ten but didn't get any prizes. Still better then the guy next to me who threw the club, probably unintentionally, into the lake instead of the ball.
Most of the area around Taupo is geo thermic and some houses have boreholes which supply all their heating needs, how strange is that? Rose wanted to see some molten lava, but we thought that wouldn't be a good thing. Loads of mud pools and hot springs, including a beach where you can dig a hole in the sand at low tide and lay back in a hot water pool as a hot spring runs out into the sea.
Also quite impressive was the Hooka falls, used for hydro electrics further up stream and flowing from lake Taupo it has channeled into a small gorge and flows at 160m3/second, whichis about 32,000 gallons, you wouldn't want to fall in there.
so that's another week done, 7 days from now we'll be approaching Singapore on the way home.
Dave's off fishing for the weekend so I'll be shopping with the ladies in Auckland, rather than drive we might take the local ferry which drops you in the town centre, what a good idea that would be for Swindon!!!
laters
M
One of the reasons for going down the coast was to look up an old friend from Purton who moved out to Ohope Beach about 3-4 months ago with his wife Sue. Fergi was a flight engineer from Lyneham when we first met him as a biker many moons ago. He married Sue (an Aussy but we won't hold that against her) (especially as he now has this site address and is probably reading this as well as you) They have an apartment on Ohope beach but have done a one year house swap with Fergi's place in Purton. It's not a pleasent place to visit especially as they have a whole road and 20mtrs of grass between them and the beach, and the prospect of having two wet bathrooms to clean just filled me with horror. Town for them is just over the hill, which is busy falling into the sea and the Volcano 15 miles off shore is active !! I really do envy them their current lifestyle. What they do at the end of the year is still an unwritten chapter but will probably involve extensive European travel I suspect.
Sometime around this part of the journey Rose managed to find the only venomous creature in NZ which promptly bit her on the toe!! We think it was a Katipo which is related to the Australian Redback and the Black Widow!! so an hour or so yesterday was spent finding out how good the NZ NHS is! Rose now rattles with pills and has a vague ointment smell about her but all else seems ok again.
Taupo this morning was spent retrieving Pumice stone from the beach (better than sweets for colleagues (and free)) and trying to get a hole in one on a floating green moored in the lake. I hit the green 3 times out of ten but didn't get any prizes. Still better then the guy next to me who threw the club, probably unintentionally, into the lake instead of the ball.
Most of the area around Taupo is geo thermic and some houses have boreholes which supply all their heating needs, how strange is that? Rose wanted to see some molten lava, but we thought that wouldn't be a good thing. Loads of mud pools and hot springs, including a beach where you can dig a hole in the sand at low tide and lay back in a hot water pool as a hot spring runs out into the sea.
Also quite impressive was the Hooka falls, used for hydro electrics further up stream and flowing from lake Taupo it has channeled into a small gorge and flows at 160m3/second, whichis about 32,000 gallons, you wouldn't want to fall in there.
so that's another week done, 7 days from now we'll be approaching Singapore on the way home.
Dave's off fishing for the weekend so I'll be shopping with the ladies in Auckland, rather than drive we might take the local ferry which drops you in the town centre, what a good idea that would be for Swindon!!!
laters
M
posted by Martin the BOF at 6:02 am
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