Sunday, March 8: Rain and a thunderstorm overnight, clearing before morning with some darker clouds towards the mountains & one or two short showers

Central Green Backpackers, 846 Victoria St., Hamilton 3204, tel.: +64 7 839 1928. Single room ensuite (BBH, $59 + $3)

I was up fairly early and had some muesli, toast and coffee that could be found in the kitchenette. Was fairly quickly packed together and took my leave of Dan and took off towards Matthew’s – one wrong turn but managed to find the street. His daughter Betty answered the door and her dad was having a snooze in the garage after dismantling a trampoline. They are in the middle of a move, so things seemed a little chaotic. The family dog was very forthcoming and in the course of a cup of coffee, his wife Lisa turned up as well as one of Betty’s friends and her mum; only Alice seemed to think it was still night time.

Then it was a serious day for the road. Brief stop in Bulls to take a bracket of the “No udder” sign and then the first major stop was Whanganui for some petrol (why is it 20c cheaper here than everywhere else?) only I couldn’t find a Mobil station, so took whatever else was on offer to fill up the tank. Then I took the SH 4 through to Raetihi – the countryside does appear to be a little greener after the rain of the last two days, and stopped along the way to take a zoom series of Raukawa Falls, which are on the Mangawhero River that this road follows.

Taumarunui was the next stop to get something to drink and a chicken pie ($3.5) for lunch; drove a little way out to a picnic spot for this and had the last Otago peach as well. Plenty of police cars about, and in Te Kuiti they seemed to be photographing number plates with a handheld device from the centre of the road.

Took the alternative route north which was all of 2 km shorter and went on through to Hamilton in one go. Found the hostel rather quickly, checked in (this one has a swipe card system, but the room door doesn’t seem to lock so the manager is fiddling around with it). Will see if I can shower & get into some fresh clothes, and then walk to the venue (The Bank Bar & Brasserie, corner Victoria & Hood Streets).

Quickly found the skeptics, and then we were put in the “library”, where it was just a tiny bit quieter. Unfortunately by that time the $6 pizza/beer happy hour had ended but there still was a $6 “steak” which with sides of chips and salad for $4 a piece made up a sufficient meal.

Then I started on my talk. I now think that I should bring in, “Anyone can learn to think” to introduce the qualitative testing programme – have to avoid circularity, though (& perhaps, “No one has learnt to dowse”).

Longer discussion followed, although I missed meeting the organiser Leela, who had been off larping and now had overslept the meeting in a state of “larpover”. Was fairly quickly back to the hostel after that and in bed in a very warm room (with air conditioning in the hallway but no windows in the room) by about 11:30.