Sunday 9th March
2008
The Pop Concert finished
about 10.30 which highlights one of the rules on all the camp sites “No Noise
after 10pm” and everybody
seems to adhere to it. Not much to report;
had a lazy day, we were ready for it. We went to the I
site for details of the thermal attractions, walked for an hour up river
and it being Sunday all the local people (mainly teenagers) were sat in the hot
stream that ran into the river. Viewed the
Huka
Falls of the
Waikato
River went back to
camp and had a soak in their thermally heated bathing pool. It was
lovely!
Monday, 10th
March 2008
Monday didn’t
start too well, although it was a beautiful sunny day. After breakfast Mags was putting the
table away when she said “Roger, there’s something wrong with this” The table was clearly broken and I
picked it up to look underneath and the metal leg fell off onto Margaret’s toe
and gave her a nasty cut and bruise.
Neither I nor the van company were very popular. Another blooming problem! The table was on a metal leg and held by
a clamp that was welded to one of the benches. The weld was a poor job and had
broken.
We didn’t want
to eat off our knees for the rest of the trip, nor did we want to lose another
day finding an Apollo branch getting another van. Having seen their facilities I couldn’t
see them affecting a repair. Mags went off to the kitchen in a not too happy
frame of mind.
What to
do? By good fortune the only
spanner in the tool kit fitted the nuts on the table clamp. So I removed the broken bit, went to
reception, looked up Engineers in Yellow Pages and told Mags her first site
seeing trip today was a visit to an engineering works. (Another lead
balloon!)
Nevertheless it worked –
these New Zealand working people are really good – we turned up unannounced at
this workshop, a lad looked at the job and said “Yes I can weld that for you”
did it straight away, offered to paint it as well – No charge! What do you think of that? Everywhere in
New
Zealand we have found working
people really helpful and obliging and always cheerful. After this good experience with the
engineers we stopped at the bakers and had just climbed back in the van when a
delivery man came out of the shops bent down and picked something up. He tapped on the window and when I wound
it down he offered me the coin he had picked up. When I said it wasn’t mine he
said “Keep it, it’s lucky”.
Our day had
really brightened up – what wonderful people?
After this we
went to the ‘Craters of the Moon’, a volcanic crater full of steaming vents and
mud pools. It was a Department of
Conservation site and they had laid board walks all over the fragile surface so
that you could see the blow holes.
They varied from a few inches diameter to 20 or more metres in
diameter. When we first went in we
thought we may have wasted our time but as we went around we really found it
fascinating. Suffice to say their
45 minute tour took us one and a half hours, which nearly made us late for our
next appointment
Every 2 hours they open the
flood gates of the Aratiatia Dam.
The next opening was 2.00pm and it was
1.30. It wasn’t far but when we
arrived there was a party of secondary school children already there and we
thought we might not see. However
when flood gates opened they were very orderly and we watched the river change
from a little trickle into a raging torrent which was known as the Aratiatia
Rapids. The
Waikato
River is a very
powerful river and is used to drive 91 hydropower plants between
Lake
Taupo and the
sea.
After such a
day we felt the need for another soak in a thermal
pool.
It is now 10.00pm and there is
barely a light on in the camp site, everybody is fed, showered and bedded so
I’ll have to send this tomorrow!
Roger &
Mags; Mum & Dad
