Vern: A thin sheet of ice covered the windscreen of the campervan that morning and I had to use the plastic shovel (which we'd bought for burying our landmines but never needed because of the abundance of public loos in New Zealand) to scrape it off. Dodging the law, we crept out of the campsite at 6:30am and with nothing pressing to do (such is road life) we returned to the parking spaces along side Kuirau Park in central Rotorua and set the kettle boiling. It w...

Vern: The closest town with a tyre-shop was Taupo and we pulled in there to get our two punctured tyres patched. Thirty bucks per puncture plus two bucks per each new valve. Hmm, okay fine. Balancing? No thanks, it's not OUR car. But it'll be bumpy. Don't care. (I don't know why people would ever buy ex-rental cars). The mechanics hoisted the car up and got started and we set out to empty the waiting-room coffee machine to get our money's worth. Then one of the ...