Tuesday, March 17: Cloudy the whole day with occasional showers and a little cooler

Jude’s (airbnb, $48)

The storm had passed by last night without too much to notice it by, except the rain, and certainly the winds were much weaker than had been predicted. I had my breakfast and then Ethel had to go to the doctor’s about the fall that she had had last week, and visit a friend as well, so Mischief, the dog, the attention-seeking cat, and myself were left to our own devices.

I started off by getting a couple of pictures into the blog posts, mainly of the Tongariro Crossing. All the posts had been scheduled for publication right up to departure date, and three more had been transcribed onto the computer, so all I need to do when I have another technical day is to find some photos for them and schedule them as well.

The GoogleEarth plugin didn’t seem to want to work and Firefox said it wanted an exception to allow it to run so that will have to be looked at when I’m back. Booked into the huts at Waiopaoa (Wednesday), and Waiharuru (Thursday) via the DOC site and my place on water taxis for the Waikaremoana: Leaving the motorcamp on Wednesday at 8:30 (will be an early rising that morning), and being picked up from Whanganui Bay on Friday at 2:00.

Couldn’t work out how to access Ethel’s computer to print out the hut tickets on her printer so I packed up everything and waited for Ethel to return to hand her back her keys and start off on the next leg. Which was the case around 11:30.

Took off for town and found a parking spot with 17 minutes left on it and went to Kathmandu but they only had pot holders in cooking sets, not as individual items, then it was to the library to get the printout, which was very quickly done for 40c, and I was back at the car with a minute to spare and the meter reader was on her way just around the corner.

I wanted to see the Te Reinga Falls so I took the back road (and a very quiet and isolated road it was) rather than the SH2, which I knew from 2010. It was sealed for the entire length and it looked like a couple of trees had fallen and been taken off the road.

Stopped at Tiniroto some 10 km north of the falls to stick the GPS tracker back onto the windscreen and was pretty soon in Te Reinga. And what a waterfall. Don’t think I’d be kayaking down that any time. Took a time lapse series which should be fun.

On the last stretch there were witches’ hats with “Stock” written on them, but for the first couple there were no animals on the road; but in the third section there was a herd of cows that let me pass, albeit very slowly.

I ascertained where Jude’s place was but he obviously couldn’t hear me knocking without his hearing aid, so I went down to the library and called him from there, and then I was back at his place in a couple of minutes for him to explain the house and Wairoa to me.

First on the agenda was washing, then I had to go for lunch (bakery sausage roll for $2.5), do the shopping, ask at the i-site about the condition of the road, which appears to be OK. Then I went back to Jude’s, spread my stuff out and pre-organised it for packing quickly tomorrow morning. Then it occurred to me to check whether the Waikaremoana huts have cooking facilities – for the price they should have, but it was much the same price in 2010, but no cooking facilities, as I remember especially from the second night where the girls and I cooked together. Also noticed that toothpaste had to be bought. Managed to boil the eggs without breaking them.

Drove into town for dinner; Jafa was closed, the Indian take-away was only that, the restaurant at the club was only open from Thursday to Sunday. But I got a tip from the barman to try Vista just across the bridge. Small restaurant attached to a motel, very empty, but some regular restaurant type meals for around $30. I took the pork medaillons with vegetables (carrots, leeks, zucchini, bell pepper) and horse radish & potato mash for $28 and for $4 there was a beer. The medaillons were actually steaks (proper ones without the gristle) and there were three of them so that was quite enough before my voluntary vegetarianism kicks in tomorrow.

Bought the toothpaste, went to the town hall and got onto the internet and found out that the Waikaremoana huts do not have cookers, so that the gas bottle and cooker will come into good use after all. No new emails so will have to check about Napier on the day.