Woke up at 7 exactly, overcast, rained in the night but obviously so gently it didn't wake me up. We were both awake, so time for breakfast, as we were keen to get started on the day's travelling. Nice showers here - like a separate room, with its own sink and mirror, and loads of free hot water with a 5 minute timer so you don't go too mad. Jen pointed out that next door had an empty voddie bottle in the recycling when I said I wasn't sure there was anyone there - images of couple passed out in the large RV (with towed Suzuki jeep thing), eeeaauuuwww.
We started out on Hwy 1, but there was a lot of consideration given to the route thereafter, basically east or west of Lake Taupo. We'd kind of done east previously, at least partly, but it looked like an easier route, so we stuck with Hwy 1. This actually took us the other side of the Togariro National Park, so we had an entirely different view of the volcanoes this time. In fact, this side, you travel on the Desert Road, so-called because the entire plateau, about 800m about sea level, is a blasted heath, quite literally - the Rangipo Desert. it's covered in horrible scrub and has lots of bare and lifeless looking areas, so whilst not really a desert, it certainly feels like one. Thus we weren't really surprised that Mt Ngauruhoe was Mount Doom in TLotR, with the surroundings being "Plains of Gorgoroth", it looks pretty forbidding! Just before that it's pretty much like Dartmoor, and has the same handy use i.e. the army get in there and blast away at each other, with forbidding "Don't Even THINK About Entering This Area" signs all over the place. There also a museum at Waiouru, with the army base, and that looks pretty forbidding too, like a grey concrete fortress that reminds me of nothing more promising than the device assembly building in an unnamed nuclear weapons facility. Nice.
Fortunately this is preceded by Taihape, the Gumboot Throwing Capital of the World, along with its giant welly statue and the opportunity to practise for yourself - we declined the offer. So we had at least had a smile on our faces before entering the Forbidden Zone!
Stopped for coffee at Turangi, a busy cafe with great coffee and some interesting buns. A pair of these was possessed by the statuesque waitress, named, according to the tag on her top, "Chubs" - she must have been 2m tall, with a topknot as well, so clearly no reservations about her height! It's the Trout Fishing Capital of the World too, as well as being the Chunky Waitress Capital of the World.
From there we retraced our early steps past Lake Taupo, but neither of us could see any resemblance to the last time! Either we're really forgetful, or it just looked different going the other way (different views in fact) or last time was early in the morning and we didn't really take it in. Taupo looked much the same, but less busy. we just kept heading north up Hwy 1, stopping at Tirau for an ice-cream and to check out the honey shop and the jewellery shop, or at least Jen did. The Tirau info centre is in a corrugated iron pig, with the shops in a similarly constructed sheep. There was more evidence of corrugated iron art also, which probably makes Tirau the Corrugated Iron Sculpture Capital of the World. Damn, and I thought Katikati was the originator of this fascinating art movement.
We've stopped in Karapiro, beside the lake, just down from the dam, which has to be crossed to get to the village and site. There are loads of very classy baches here, some of enormous size, with views across the lake and so on. The lake itself is incredibly long - apparently Donald Campbell's daughter captured the Ladies' Water Speed Record on it, with a 1500hp hydroplane. It's probably 20 km long, very thin, largely because it's the result of a dammed river. It also gets used for rowing competitions, and there's a careful explanation of the road rules in the leaflet, including "waterskis go anti-clockwise". Jen's packed her case to save doing it tomorrow, I suppose I'd better do something like that, at least get my wetsuit bagged up and fitted in. Poo. All brings it a bit closer…
Last night I dreamt about work, or at least, some people from work, and the general tone was of work i.e. some awareness of things to be done, stuff to be concerned about, interactions with people on a work basis. Otherwise it was a relatively good sleep, I didn't really wake up much. I guess my brain is getting itself into gear! it would be very interesting to have a six month travel around here, to see how much I got out of the habit. We've barely scratched the surface, as they say, so much to do here. Every place I go past I want to go and see, but don't - hell I don't fish, but signs indicating "good fishing place" are soooo tempting! And that's without any of the "artificial" things, like jet boating, river rafting and so on. I wonder when I'll come back, and how much of these things will I do? Perhaps next time we'll book some things ahead of time, but this is a good time of year to come. With a six month trip you could go snowboarding too, with a couple of heli-drops thrown in… wow, that would be nice!
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