Monday, March 9: A few drizzle patches in the morning & a little cloudy throughout the day

Tramping: 7.5 km

Astray Motel & Backpackers, 1202 Pukuatua St, Rotorua 3010, tel.: +64 7 348 1200, single room scarcely larger than the bed (BBH, $32 + $3 + $5)

• Topo
• GPS

Sleep was so interrupted during the night that I was one of the first at the free breakfast: Cornflakes & milk, coffee, toast, I was ready to leave by just after 8:30. Looking at the maps last night it occurred to me that I might do a river walk to avoid arriving in Rotorua too early, and drove around the corner to the end of the street, parked the car and proceeded to walk towards the town centre and then do a loop of the river involving two bridges before heading back to the car. One bracket of a park with a river landing, quite a pleasant surprise in the middle of Hamilton.

Then it was to a supermarket to buy some strepsils, as I had a rather sore throat after my hattrick of skeptics in pubs, before pushing off down the road to Rotorua with only one further stop to clear the windscreen.

Here I drove around a bit before parking at a shopping centre and getting out to walk around town a bit. Found the hostel, a bakery with two sausage rolls for $4.8, and then a park to eat the rolls in. Then I drove to the hostel to take up my room, suss out the arrangement, try out the internet and put stuff in the fridges.

Elected for a nap shortly afterwards and did get some snooze. Since I now have to provide my own breakfast (and perhaps introduce some variation into the lunch programme) I went down to the Pak’n’Save for some mandarines, orange juice, muesli, milk & bread. Will see about some spread tomorrow.

Then I sought out a Chinese place for chicken fried rice for $12 (Fortune Chinese Restaurant, 1129 Tutanekai St) – enough for two days again, and came back here to eat it. Will have to try doing some washing before going down to the lake front to try some photos.

Am thinking that a second rucksack – smaller and more easily loadable with some very basic stuff would be more useful than all the bags.

Time lapses of the sunset (made to the acquaintance of a woman from Bielefeld) and of Eat Streat with its changing lights. Unlike its name giver (which would have to be Frankfurt’s Fressgasse) there are actually restaurants here where you can sit in front of the restaurant under cover of a giant glass roof and watch the participants of the promenade.