I felt a bit woozy in the morning so got a run in to clear my head. It was hard. The one thing I forgot was my "long term" asthma inhaler so I'm running on ventolin and my lungs aren't what they should be.
We headed out on the short road from Tauranga to Rotorua; which should have been a fast trip if not for an old car whose driver had decided that if he wanted to go at 60 km/h, the rest of us could as well. The road was windy enough that there were was nowhere to pass, and slow vehicle lanes were assiduously (the new word of the day) ignored.
Oh well. It was a nice scenic road, so we and the 10 other carloads following relaxed and enjoyed the views. (Well, attempted to.)
Toby navigated us straight in to the Picnic Cafe for brunch. It was great. And a real locals' cafe with people wandering in and chatting to the staff. My vegetarian pancakes were superb - nice filling and tasty.
There was a car show in the field opposite the cafe so we thought it'd be rude not to take a look. It was very eclectic - a mix of expensive and cheap cars, old and new cars - looked to be all the various car clubs in one place. Minis were mixed with all ages of Jaguars and Mustangs, Fiats rubbed shoulders with Corvettes, there were Austin Maxis and even a base model Ford Laser from the 1980s that was assiduously maintained and presented.
Toby and Tessa played in the kids' playground for a short time while I eyed up the construction works to create a lakefront walk. It'll be nice soon when all the heavy machinery goes away.
Next on our list was a visit to the 'Farty Park' - aka Kuirau Park - that Toby remembered from his childhood. Initially it was completely underwhelming. An average grassy park with fenced off areas of insipid dirty pools and mud with no activity. But the action was all at the other end of the park, culminating in a large hot thermal lake.
Tessa had spotted a cat cafe just around the corner so we checked it out. Wonderful! A gelato cafe attached to a room with 25 chilled out cats. It was a peaceful and fun hour to just hang out with friendly but largely disinterested cats.
We were planning on staying the night here in Rotorua, but we felt we'd done everything we wanted to so headed south instead - on highway 30 and 32 just to make it interesting. Toby the navigator was confused by this and thought we were on our way to Hamilton. But it all worked out.
We stopped at the famous Tokaanau hot pools and Toby and Tessa headed into a pool while I booked ahead at Plateau Lodge, National Park. A slightly awkward conversation to try to avoid the booking dot com margin left me paying $15 more for the room than I could have if I'd have just booked on the app. Oh well, lesson learned.
Our room was nice - 4 beds with shared facilities just across the hallway. I'd stay here again! It'd be ideal in the snow season.
Off to Schnapps Bar for dinner, for hearty pub grub. My burger was just what my friend Doro had been talking about - an honest kiwi burger done right. No aioli and sourdough bun and seven different kales here - a white bread bun, a regular patty from the freezer and lettuce and beetroot, but all done exactly as it should be. Delicious.
While Toby and Tessa played pool I chatted to the bar owner about the future of Ruapehu, got an interesting perspective. He was definitely one of the business owners that sees the changes happening as a good thing, and (as I agree) we can't expect things to be like they were back in the day for us regular skiers.
Wandered back for a nice comfy sleep.
No comments:
Post a Comment