Steam in Strange Places

21 November The next morning was spent wandering around Rotorua. Bizarrely there is a park in the town where thermal holes are fenced off.

Here and there are definite hot spots in the grass where you can see that another one is likely to break through at some stage. The camp site that we had stayed at had its own hot mineral pool that we went into. It smelt a bit of sulphur but was lovely and warm. As we walked around it seemed that virtually every holiday park had the same type of thing. As we walked into the town it was not unusual to see steam rising up out of drains or in a couple of places, billowing up out of holes in the road!

We found a Maori church complete with an etched Jesus in one window who appeared to be wearing a Maori cloak. And in another area completely was a replica war canoe with all its wonderful carvings.

After a bit of souvenir shopping, we were back on the road again. We wanted to reach the Bay of Islands the following day so planned to Free Camp that night just before Auckland and get past Auckland just after rush hour. More Wiggly tin appeared with a shepherd outside a church and then a sheep and a sheepdog.

The strangest thing happened when we decided that it was time to find somewhere to stop for the night. We were on one of NZ's few dual carriageways so decided to simply turn off and try to find somewhere to stop. It turned out to be a farm track leading nowhere and as we turned round, the farmer came out and offered us a field for the night! He and his mate had been buying in wild goats from the bush and there were lots of delightful little kids bouncing around in fields. We were told to make use of his quad bike to see what was down the river, and then whilst I threw sticks for the dog, Dave helped them figure out what was wrong with their very old Russian tractor. It needed a new clutch. It might not have needed one quite so much if the mate had hit it less with his hammer.