NZ North Island and Cricket

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Caught to Inter-islander ferry and this was a very pleasent journey as it meandered along the coast across Cook Strait and into Wellington in 3 hours, We thought it would be like the isle of wight ferry taking 20 minutes but how wrong can we be. It was a huge boat with 5 vehicle decks and three passenger decks with cafes, sun deck and other levels where passengers can watch TV or sleep.
Fran saw a pod of dolphins swimming near the ferry.
We headed for a local campsite in Wellington for the night. It was like a supermarket carpark behind a Travelodge calling itself a Motor Inn. Well, if people can make easy money from this then I will open one in UK. Hope camping can only get better.

Bought tickets to see England play Sri Lanka at the 'Cake tin' or by its real name the Wellington Regional Stadium. I left Fran to watch cricket and I drove about an hour north to a classic car show. This was at the held at a local car museum, well there were all sorts of american cars, Chevy, Pontiac, Mustang, as well as a small gathering of vintage cars and some good old English makes, MG, Triumph, Morris, Ford and good old minis but also plenty of motor bikes. A really good turnout of cars etc. Afterwards I drove back to Wellington and joined Fran for the second half of the cricket and saw how Sri Lanka gave us a good lesson in how to bat and as you guessed we lost the match, however a good day out was had by both of us.

Headed north and found a local small community holding its kite festival on the beach. Then through Palmerston North we found a 'real' campsite a bit like being back in Scouts. Run by a couple of old guys and sited behind an industrial area of the town with a donkey we heard by didnt managed to see, we hooked up for the night and a sing song round the campfire. (Ha!)

After this we drove to Napier on the east coast to pick up the Thermal Explorer Highway to Taupo and onward to Rotorua. Well, this road was just shy of 200 km of wonderful mountainous scenery and saw the rising stream from the rocks and the noise and smell of the bubbling mud. The north island has more people living per kilometre than the south island so we saw more farms and houses by the roadside. Farming seams to be the normal way of life, cows eating lush green grass and sheep getting a raw deal and eating straw. Fran was trying to photograph Harris Hawks as they flew over head but we were too slow. We arrived in Taupo which had north island largest lake, seamed like a good place to spend a night.

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