We are back home in Perth and nearly a week has past and no entry in the blog. Bad boy Brian! See, I really do need that pocket sized notebook computer, so I can do my entries from anywhere - trying to elbow onto internet terminals in airports is just too hard! I'm going to post these in day sized chunks anyway to make it a bit easier to follow the chronology.
The flight to Auckland was overnight landing a 5:50 AM. We did not sleep much and felt very sleepy on arrival. As we had hiking gear with us we were treated to a special welcome by NZ customs officials. They are not keen on having some of our species introduced to NZ. We were meant to meet a guy to pick up a hire car but he was not there so we wandered off to have breakfast. When we finished that he was there and we grabbed the car and wandered off looking for a park where we could park and sleep!
Our walking friends Gary and Meryl arrived at 15:00 and we drove to Taupo, a beautiful town on a huge lake caused by a larger than Krakatoa volcanic explosion about 2000 years ago. We had terrific rooms there thanks to Meryl and her skills with 'Rates to go'. We had dinner at a pub downtown, pretty good food, and you can't beat NZ for variety in their beers. Well probably the UK can but I know where I'd rather be eating!
When we were driving into town, we stopped at a red light behind a truck with hay and 3 young adult lads in the back. It did not look very safe, especially since one of the guys was hand-cuffed to a large blow up doll. When the light turned green the driver popped the clutch and the guy with the doll did a neat somersault out of the back of the truck onto the bitumen. Ouch! Luckily I did not run over him and he hopped back in. Later when we were having our meal he wandered up to our table to chat, being at the friendly stage of inebriation. We asked him if he fell out of a truck earlier. Nope. Hmmm. We wondered how many guys in Taupo were hand-cuffed to dolls that night!
