11
We unloaded from the ferry at Wellington,
the capital, in a driving rain. We took in the Te Papa Museum, saw the Capital
Building, and as I hate strange city driving in the rain, we headed on up the
island. We were getting into a very volcanic region. We drove for miles along a
very large lake that we could barely see across, that was formed by a giant
volcanic explosion. We knew this part of the country just had a very thin crust
over unimaginable volcanic power potential. I just hope we get past it before
it struts its stuff. We passed a bad but not fatal car wreck, and the country
is so remote there it was thirty minutes before we met an ambulance coming to
the scene. We almost passed a waterfall sign, but decided to go back and see
it. We have came upon some amazing sights by accident in our travels, and this
was no exception. Beautiful aqua blue water, covered with foam, poured over the
huge cliff. The water came from the large volcanic lake we had been passing.
After lunch we reached Rotoroua, listed in
Fromer's Travel Book as one of the top ten cities in the world to see. All over
town, large pits of boiling mud, water and steam were on the surface. Even on
the golf course. Talk about playing the rough -
Most of the people had used the hot water to heat their houses, until it
was recently curtailed. Well, as one would suspect, this town had tons of
motels, etc. But, just our luck, again, this was their “Labor Day,” our third
Labor Day we had experienced that year. No lodging was to be found. Barb picked
out a nice looking lady manning the Visitor's Center, and gave her sob story,
“Here we are, on our trip of a lifetime, and - “ I had heard this all before,
but, once again, it worked. The lady looked us over a long time, and made a
call. She had judged us to be “safe,” well dressed and clean, and obtained a home
stay for us. I have to admit, if we had been dirty and looked like bums, that
would never have happened. We might have had to sneak out on the golf course,
and sleep beside one of the boiling mud pits that night to stay warm. I guess,
its just my lot in life, carrying half the clothes we own, around on my back,
all over the world. Actually, they were in our car, but sometimes one just has
to extrapolate a little in the interest of being interesting.
Our home stay turned out to be with a very
nice lady, five years a widow, in a very nice house.
She gave us a key, turned the whole bottom
floor over to us, and left for the rest of the day. The exchange rate was
better in New Zealand than in Australia, and our $105 cost converted to about
$70 US.
We
had a long visit with her that night, after a great supper. Her son had gone on
“walkabout” for a year, years ago, met a woman in Ireland, and never returned.
Breakfast the next morning was no less good, and the coffee was almost too
strong, even for Barbara. Barbara prides herself on being addiction free, but
has walked miles before, early morning,
to find a cup of coffee.
We went to a farm show that day. We saw a
man shear a sheep in two minutes, and got to see expert sheep dogs work. Needless
to say, the big selling items in stores were wool.
The next day, we stopped at a motel an
hour from Auckland. We had one more day to “see things,” and we made the most
of it.
Beautiful bright green mountains sloped
for miles down toward the sea, covered with cattle and sheep. We passed, then came back and
photographed, a flock of a dozen or so (Since I may put that picture in later,
maybe not quite a dozen) wild turkey gobblers in full strut, each trying to
look more glorious than the others, for the benefit of the few hens around.
Barb carefully stalked them at first, getting distance shots. As she gradually
got closer, she realized they were not as wild as we expected, and besides, the Gobblers only had eyes for
the ladies that day. She got a great photo.
We went to Hot Water Beach. The area
between high and low tide had many hot springs seeping and shooting up through
the sand, and it was now low tide. Dozens upon dozens of people show up. They
dig a hole in the sand, and lie in the very warm water. It was still cold
weather, the sea water was very cold, and when a very large wave came in, it
turned everyone's hot bath into ice water, sending us scurrying out screaming.
In places, if you were not careful, the water coming up was almost
scalding, and we hit one of those
occasionally.
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