15/03/09

We woke up at about 9 after a lot of sleep and no one could be arsed to get up other than Pat who seemed to want to drive on to New Plymouth as soon as possible even though we'd planned the day to be a lazy coastal drive ariving in New Plymouth in the afternoon. The girls and I laid in bed, ate junk food, attempted to fix my camera and pissed about for a few hours before we decided to get a move on. We left at about 1130 and stopped off in a few spots on the way to New Plymouth. One spot was called the Three Sisters, which I'm sure we saw in the Blue Mountains in Aus.

We arrived in New Plymouth and stopped off at the tourist info then went and parked up in a supermarket car park and wandered in to the main shopping mall. The girls got hoodies from CottonOn while the lads and I used the internet at the tourist info. I couldn't get anything done again because Pat decided to sit directly behind me again so I just let him have the remaining 10 minutes of internet and went and laid outside. There were some random guys outside attempting to do backflips, I managed to teach one of them how to do a standing tuck back before we left to wander down the main street back to the camper.

We drove off to a spot near the harbour where we could park over night and went for a walk, the guys got fish and chips while I went for a run along the beach. The girls saw the wedges they had got and decided to get some too. I found a bench to do a bit more pommel work on, some kids saw me and attempted to give it a go, which was quite funny. We lazed around the camper in the evening reading trying to avoid being bitten by sand-flies. Rich and I showered in the freezing cold outside beach shower. No one else seemed to be hungry after their fish and chips 'snack' so we didn't cook the curry we had planned. Coops and I watched a few episodes of the Simpsons and a Coupling before going to bed.

16/03/09

Woke up early to get to Mt. Taranaki to do go for a walk. We got there and Burns had fun trying to park up the camper on a freshly laid road surface, the workman was having a right go at him for turning the wheels round while stationary, he was ripping up all the chippings. It was pretty cold when we got out of the camper so the girls decided to go in trousers and took hoodies with them. After about 10 minutes of walking up the mountain the hoodies were off and the trousers were rolled up to the knees. We stuggled walking up hill for about 2 - 3 hours, the final stint was ridiculous, it was called the Puffer and was pretty much a 45 degree incline. The view from the top was amazing though. It got cold at the top so the hoodies went back on. The sandwiches we had prepared had gone rather mushy and may as well have been dipped in a bowl of milk. On the way down we passed a group of students out on a trip, one of the girls gave me a funny look then laughed and said "He's doing it in JANDALS!!". Surprisingly no one managed to stack it the entire way around, although Helen had to go for a piss in a bush, to find out that round the next corner was the finish, with public toilets.

We drove back to New Plymouth and spent the afternoon in Esquires Coffee house which promised free wi-fi with any purchase. We all bought drinks and started to organise some photos so upload, the girls got lazy and couldn't be arsed to go through theirs, the internet wasn't working anyway so we all took shifts in going to d*** Smiths and 'testing out' the laptops in store. Burns went to move the van from the car park and re-park it as we had used our 90 minute limit. When he got back he went to d*** Smiths then the post office and then used the bog in Esquires. About 20 minutes later he asked if anyone knew where the car keys were. He went back to the post office, Smiths and couldn't find them anywhere. He finally asked at Esquires, one of the girls had found them on the floor in the toilet.

We drove to Stratford in the evening and parked up on the roadside overnight. Coops and I started some brain training quiz book that I picked up from the shop, we spent ages doing some crazy maths crossword. Such a noisy night, hardly got any sleep with the trains and traffic going past constantly.

17/03/09

We had a really lazy day, we didn't get up to leave until 1130. We spent a while sorting the car out at the shell garage before we left. The girls decided to wash all the windows neglecting only the front window which was probably the only one which actually needed cleaning. Helen got wolf-whistled at by some random bloke.

We drove the 'Forgotten Highway', this highway was certainly forgotten, we only passed about 5 vehicles the entire time we were on it, which was about 4-5 hours. The tourist information centre handed out leaflets listing loads of things to do along the highway, after about 20 minutes driving we came to a lookout in some village consisting of about 3 buildings and realised that we had completely missed the first 3 things on the list. The view was brilliant though. Our next stop was another 'saddle' or lookout. Then after a few more hours driving we came to the 'Hobbit Hole' which was a tunnel only just big enough to fit the van through, we squeezed through and then stopped off for lunch at the gorge. All in all, the forgotten hightway was fun to drive, I'm sure it was hell to be a passenger, the roads were seriously windy and bumpy. There certainly was not as much to do as the tourist centre told us.

We stopped off in the town at the end of the highway to stock up on food then pressed on to Whakapapa. On the way we saw a huge bright rainbow. We got there and found the DOC carpark where we needed to be in the morning. We had a quick wander around the nearby camp site to suss out if pikey showers were a possibility for tomorrow then left to find the nearest layby to park up in, we hadn't passed any laybys in a while and we were passing a few camp sites, I decided to pull up and check the prices of one but had already driven past it, I started reversing down the road and Coops was saying keep going...keep going, I thought she was guiding me back down the road even though there was about 50 metres still to go, turns out everyone had decided they didn't want to stop there and wanted to keep on driving. The nearest gravel pit was quite far out of the way and was right next to the main road and another train line. We pulled up cooked some tuna and pasta and went to bed early. Again, not the best nights sleep.