This morning my plan is to…………actually I’m not too sure what the plan is! I really want to get over to the South Island because everyone says how beautiful it is, but there is still so much of the North Island to see.
So to clear my head and try and decide on a plan I head up to the Volcanic Activity Centre to marvel at the volcanology of the area. It’s an interesting little place and right next door is a research centre, my plan all along was to pull out the ‘I’m a volcanlogist’ card again and ask to visit the research centre but its Sunday!! And apparently volcanoes don’t erupt on a Sunday or at least no-one’s working on a Sunday, shame though, so instead I decided to head off to Napier, wine country, to see if I liked it enough to stay the night or whether I would move on.
Before heading off I stopped by the lake side to soak up the atmosphere, it’s a really beautiful spot and the lake is lovely. Where I had pulled over was right by a fantastic little golfing experience! The only difference was that the holes you were aiming for were on a pontoon 100m out into the lake! It was good fun watching all these guys trying their hand at the goal! I think even you Pete would have difficulty with that one!
Golfing into Lake Taupo!
It was about a 2 hour drive to Napier and it was certainly busy, even on a Sunday, and although it did look nice I decided to head off to Cape Kidnappers (!) and Hastings to see what they were like.
Cape Kidnappers, apart from having an interesting name, is home to thousands of gannets at this time of the year, the thing is you either need to take a tour that would leave a lot earlier than 5pm in the afternoon (the time that I got there) or by taking a 5 hour walk along the beach at low tide. Either way I didn’t fancy my chances, so on to Hastings it was.
When I got to Hastings it wasn’t too dissimilar to the Hastings we know and love to be honest, although I think the one we know and love has a little more going on, perhaps here it was just cause it was Sunday!! Needless to say I decided at this point, actually very late n the afternoon, to head straight to Wellington. It was an over 300km drive from where I was to get to Wellington, I had already driven 140km, but hey what’s another few hundred km huh??!!
The drive from Hastings to Wellington was very pretty and very pleasant with loads to see along the way. On the way I came to the conclusion that I do love having the car, I think it was a very good plan on my behalf rather than taking the bus, but to have a camper van would give so much more freedom. I had left Hastings and was half hour down the road before I remembered that I hadn’t booked any accommodation for the night, this is when a camper would be good and I could stop just anywhere!
It then took me a further 30 mins to find a public phone to call from, I’m really not great on forward planning am I?? Anyway on the third call I managed to book a bed for the night and continued onto Wellington with the knowledge that at least I was sleeping somewhere.
Wellington is the capital of New Zealand and is therefore a busy city! I arrived at the hostel just after 9pm and straight away decided that I would only spend the one day there before heading over on the ferry to South Island, perhaps that’s a little unfair on my behalf but cities just have such a different feel to them than the smaller towns or villages and I so want to get over to the South Island.
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