Tag Archives: Te Kuiti

New Zealand, Skeptics

26. Palmerston North – Hamilton

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. Read more…

New Zealand, Travel Planning

20. Raglan – New Plymouth

Monday, March 2: Quite cloudy at first, becoming fine & warm

Sunflower Backpackers, 33 Timandra St., New Plymouth 4310, tel.: +64 6 759 0050, triple as single (BBH, $45 + $5)

Robert was up earlier than me and the table was already laid out for breakfast. The usual fare: Cornflakes, banana, two poached eggs on toast and coffee. Then the packing had to take place – got most of the stuff into the rucksack, and the chilly bin is now fully functional with two frozen water bottles.

Decided to make Robert a present of the book and he insisted on an inscription (he had given me a print of one of his paintings the night before) and then the obligatory picture had to be taken for his collection. Fiddly mobile phone camera. He was also very pleased that I had gotten his ancient XP machine to run a little faster by clearing caches, deleting zombie files, killing a few processes, installing a few updates and eventually reducing the processor load to less than 100%. We swapped emails and no doubt he will find me on facebook. I’ll check to see if he has had his hip replacement surgery if I pass through Hamilton at a late stage in the journey. Read more…