Cross country drive

Thursday, April 30, 2015
Auckland, North Island, New Zealand
A bright and early start this morning and it was goodbye Napier. It's a nice place, quiet and not a bad place to stop for the night. It is in the Hawkes Bay district, which is a pretty well known wine area but the extent of our wine country tour started and finished at the local supermarket. The difference here is that supermarket also sells beer and wine so sampling the local drop is as easy as getting along to aisle 3. ( here they were selling a range of Kim Crawford whites for about $10- too good to pass up) 
    From Napier we struck west, inland across country on our way to Auckland via Rotorua . Our coffee stop on the way was at a little cafe in the middle of nowhere, Whatalotasnot or something like that, and it reminded me of a movie scene. It was on a mountain road, it was set in pine forests and to complete the picture there were some hunters ( dressed in camouflage gear, can't be too sure when these nasty deer will all gain some higher level of cogniscence) . seated inside and outside their red pickup complete with real dead, recently shot deer in the back. Ah, ain't nature grand. We took our coffee outside and sat taking in the scenery, but all the while waiting for Bambi to come gambolling through the bush asking where his Mum was. Just in case,I had worked out a cover story to tell him - his Mum had decided she wanted to try her hand in the mines and was working the pits when a support beam along open face 14 started to give way so she was there holding it up while they brought in the pneumatics and he should go home and start dinner because she may be some time. I reckon he'd have bought it. 
   Our next stop was Rotorua . I won't bore anyone by describing the place, if you haven't been there you have seen pictures. Once again, nature at its finest. Although why do they have to name all the different formations features. Can't we just have signs describing the features? No, we have to name them. There's "Satan's bum crack" and "The Zits of Thor" and "Whoawathfkwasthat". Lots of steam, sulphur, strange coloured water and the all pervading rotten egg smell. Just like Silverwater in the good old days. 
  Back in the car for the three hour drive up to Auckland. Beautiful scenery- that's all I can say. No dramas until......who was to know there was more than one Beach rd in Auckland. I reckon, in a final "up yours" from our lady in the satnav, we ended up the wrong side of the harbour in some suburban street looking for our hotel. Using all our traveller's knowledge we deduced that the brick two fronted house we stopped in front of was not the Waldorf Apartments. Suffice to say it was not a happy driver who eventually checked in to our room - although my co- driver saw the humorous side of things. Tomorrow we explore Auckland. Speak to you tomorrow.

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