Day 90 - Sun 17 Jun - Turangi to Waikite Valley There was a motorhome parked up with us last night and we had a bit of rain in the night too. Lake Taupo was very choppy with lots of whitecaps caused by the wind across the lake. We stopped at the 2 Mile Bay dumpsite - we don't recommend this to anyone! First of all there was a steep entrance off the side road and then we had to drive the car halfway up the bank to get the caravan near enough. We didn't stop i...

Day 88 - Fri 15 Jun - Mangaweka to Turangi We woke to a fine morning and the river level has dropped a lot. Yesterday we had several vehicles of locals down to check on the river including the local council ute. There was just a Juicy van in overnight with us. We got an early start (for us anyway). With no snow recently the roads were all clear and we arrived at Turangi by 11.30am. The Central Plateau mountains had a good snow cover on but the ski fields are...

Day 87 - Thu 14 Jun - Marton to Mangaweka Ros took the opportunity of tubs with a wringer to get some handwashing done before we left today. It was just a light drizzle as we drove north. As we passed through Ohingaiti we noticed 2 Fire Engines and a Police car there and realised there had been a fire overnight in a garage/workshop. Mangaweka wasn't as far away as we thought and we were set up before lunch. We had to park on the top terrace at the campsite a...

Day 85 - Tue 12 Jun - Wellington to Marton We had a wild night with wind and rain all night so not a peaceful night. We checked the forecast and it wasn't looking good so we decided to get over the hill to the Kapiti Coast via Hayward's Hill. It was still windy and we stopped at Plimmerton NZMCA Park. However after a break Bruce was keen to press on to Marton as it was still windy at Plimmerton and very muddy in places. We got blown about a bit going over the Hi...

Day 83 - Sun 10 Jun - Picton to Wellington Whoa! I forgot how much traffic goes past here - hardly got any sleep last night! We had a quiet morning then after lunch we headed down to Bluebridge Check-In. We were almost the first vehicle on board so had a great choice of seating. We had to wait for Interislander to leave port first - yesterday Bluebridge was in front…It was a calm crossing and we arrived in Wellington to a vista of city lights. Again we wer...