Friday, February 27: Cloudy in the morning, clearing on the way north, just a bit of rain in Taumarunui, which we missed, and rain visible in the distance around Hamilton
Chinara’s
Was up before 8:00 to finish off the bread from yesterday with what remained of the ham, and a can of Watties baked beans with sausages for breakfast. Simon called over with a final loaf of bread which I saved up for the bus trip.
The rest of the morning was spent packing and transcribing another two days of the diary. Managed to transfer €500 from a savings account to the Visa card, and with a daily limit on cash withdrawals of €600, I should be able to get the $1200 for the car together in cash for tomorrow.
Just after midday I was ready to go so I went over to Sue & Simon’s, gave them back their daughter’s key and all three of us took off down to town. There had been an issue with the green Toyota jeep after my last use of it – apparently the battery had gone flat and the car wouldn’t start – but I hadn’t been using the lights or anything else electrical that might have drained the battery, so it was big mystery as to how it ran out. Anyhow, it had been jump started that morning, so things were back in the green. A stop at the bank netted $800, mainly in 50s (BNZ), and with that out of the way Sue left us for shopping & Simon dropped me directly at the bus stop & took leave of me.
Waiting around I was soon joined by Ina, who was headed for Rotorua with a bus a little later. After a medium wait my bus turned up (this time a Ritchies bus, possibly because of the reverse gear problem) – anyway the driver was the same Northern English gent from the trip down, and Pea’s way back, and the bus was pretty full. I managed to start working on my ‘Science’ playlist on the ipod, although everything else seems to have been erased. Apple! How difficult can it be to design software to organise a few tunes and podcasts? Obviously nearly impossible.
There was a little rain just before the longer stop in Taumarunui, but the sun was out again by the time the driver had driven around the block. The break was a little shorter on this trip, so I sat in a park and devoured a large part of the bread. Back on the bus I was seated next to an American woman who tried explaining to me how she was going to see all of New Zealand in two weeks, and she was fresh off the Tongariro Circuit in 4 days. She was headed for Otorohanga, camping, possibly staying in the motorcamp (#2/2010) where the guy knows where the kiwi nest is.
Change in Otorohanga was a Polish woman, Ania, who I introduced myself to correspondingly. She, too, was on a two-week tour, next to Matamata, and then to Rotorua. Short stop in Hamilton, because we were now 30 minutes behind schedule. My next companion was a schoolboy more interested in his laptop and then in two Rubik’s cubes – a 3*3 then a 4*4 – plenty of kids in uniform joining the bus here. A lot of people got off in Manukau, and the few of us left arrived in Auckland just after 7:30.
Long trek to the bus stop, and then had to run to catch a bus that had just pulled up. Was let off in Onewa Rd and was down at Chinara’s in a short time. She had let the downstairs room, and I’ve gotten the upstairs one for a change.
Sent a spot message, swapped batteries between the headlamp and the compass to get the latter working again, and while I am writing this, Chinara is watching a French movie on TV. Had picked up some beer, and Chinara had offered me some pizza leftovers.
