Monday 24^th. March. 

The weather forecast for Tongariro, Taupo and Rotorua area is not good, so I decide to drive some 300 km. north to Hamilton to drop in on an acquaintance from Fiji in 66/67. Om Singh was more of a friend of my contemporary Peter Spain, who for all of his 2 years as a VSO in Fiji lived in the same Government Batchelor Quarters as Om. I was only in those quarters for about a month whilst on a temporary job for my VSO placement, but Peter was fairly insistent on my looking in on Om. Peter had seen quite a bit of him last year because Om had been in London visiting his brother who lives not too far away from Peter. 

My original intention had been to drop in on my way to Auckland, my final destination prior to my departure from NZ, but with the weather forecast as it is, and me now feeling that I need a holiday from the holiday, it seemed a reasonable plan.

As I drive north a couple of very heavy squalls come in off the sea. The windscreen wipers barely cope, and at one stage a lorry in front that is about the same grey colour as the road completely disappears before my eyes. Fortunately they don’t last very long and further north the cloud breaks and the sea and sky turn blue. 

Enjoyable driving on the usual, winding, not too busy roads; varying vegetation from bush to parched grassland of varying degree of hilliness. More and bigger Tree Ferns.

 

I have a guide book to drives in NZ, and this trip is one of them, so I visit a couple of the 10 attractions listed, taking a side trip to the following.

Marokopa Falls

 

Mangapohue Natural Bridge. A rock arch left after the river carved out a tunnel in soft limestone.

There are lots of big tourist caves in the area, with buses parked outside, but I shun those.

Head up to Hamilton and find a decent cheap motel, where I have time to catch up with myself and sort out the packing of my luggage which is getting a bit out of hand: can’t find things, and dirty clothing mixed with clean not a good idea.