Reparoa...... then to Auckland

15/03/2013

Having mis-judged the distance and travel time between Taumarunui and Reporoa, where Rachael lives, we arrived at Lake Taupo before lunch. It’s only another 40 ks to Rachaels  from Taupo so we did a bit of shopping and site seeing around the town killing a bit of time.
Lake Taupo is the largest lake in New Zealand and a favourite place for Kiwi’s to spend their holidays. Not far up the road is the famous Huka Falls which we have seen before but is so spectacular we just had to go and have another look. The fall is a drop of just 9 metres but the volume of water going over is 200,000 litres a minute, an amazing sight.
We eventually got to Rachael’s around 5-30 and met at the local watering hole in the village, ‘The Woolshed’. The next few hours developed into a blur as we watched super 15s on TV and chatted with the locals.
We think The Woolshed should be twinned with the White Hart Newbold.

16/03/2013
A lovely day spent by the lake, another place I can neither spell nor pronounce. We went there with Rachael and some of her friends who have a boat and the odds and sods that go with messing about on the water. We sunbathed, BBQ’d  and watched the gang water ski-ing and being towed around the lake on an inflatable rubber ring called a donut in Australia and a biscuit here.
Then it was more at the Woolshed!

17/03/2013
Another nice day with Rachael and her boyfriend Doug starting with brunch at a very quirky café full of mosaics, just outside of Taupo. It would have been nice to sit outside to eat but at last the weather is on the change feeling autumnal with rain around.
From the café we went to an Irish pub in town as we realised it was St Patricks Day, the Irish and the not so Irish out in force. Funny how so many people suddenly find some tenuous link to coming from a Celtic background. Their ancestors came from County Clare, Inverness or some unpronounceable Welsh slag heap. Anyway we had a very nice pint of Guinness then drove out into the countryside to visit some farming friends of Doug’s who also run a hunting lodge. We went to look at their trophy room with lots of trophy stag antlers. They were from red deer which we have in the U K  but I have never seen such huge antlers, 48 pointers. The rest of the afternoon was spent in the Woolshed at Reparoa with our new friends.

 18/03/2013
  So now we are in Auckland after saying goodbye to Rachael. An uneventful drive in squally rain, with just a bit of van cleaning  and some packing to do as we fly out to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow.
 When we sold our van back in Australia it was a little like parting with an old buddy. When we hand in this heap of junk  tomorrow we will be very pleased to see the back of it. We can now look forward to our cuts, bumps and bruises  healing and our bad back to get better, after banging around like a couple of hunchbacks in this crappy tin can. The front tyres are bald, the fridge works when it feels like it, the sliding door screeches like a couple cats in a sack. ……I could go on.  For the first time ever we are looking forward to spending half a day in the airport.