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Published: March 18th 2011
Today we headed for Picton spending a couple of hours around town shopping and looking for spare bulbs for the van before taking a 3 hour there and back drive along the beautiful scenic Queen Charlotte road to Havelock with some of the most beautiful scenery we have seen to date. However, be warned this road, although scenic is bends all the way there and back. We estimated that in the 40 or so km we drove today there must have been 400 or more bends many of them hairpin- that’s uhm, 10 per km! Anyway, well worth the drive. Our campsite tonight is at Waikawa Bay Holiday Park and this rates as probably the best in terms of vfm to date. It is quite old fashioned but well kept and especially clean. The showers and toilet facilities are good and the kitchen, lounge, internet, laundry areas are in good shape. Nice individual pitch with views across Picton harbour and the hills beyond and all for $23.40 (about £12). Excellent and recommended. The next day we took the 8.00 am crossing to Wellington and the North island leg of our adventure. The crossing was smooth and uneventful apart from spotting 3
dolphins. The service on board the ferry is very good and prices not unreasonable, for example, a continental breakfast for about £3. Arriving at Wellington there were no obvious signposts showing which direction to take so we opted for left going west which I thought logical but no, it should have been right. Having got on the State Highway 1 we headed up the west coast making for Wanganui. It should have been uneventful but these were a few of the things we noted on the way up:
1. A business called Pets Rrr us
2. Another business called a Pet Centre which is also a tannery and sells, amongst other things, sheepskin covers for car seats
3. A man dragging a white cross on wheels with the word ‘Repent’ written on it along the highway. Yes I am serious
4. A line of cows at least 800 metres long making their way through an underpass to milking
5. An acrobatic display by 5 aeroplanes
At Wanganui we set up camp on yet another well kept and reasonably priced camping site and spent the evening with an Australian couple from Queensland exchanging stories and jokes and reminiscing on BBC comedy
like the Goons, Hancocks Half Hour and others.
The next day we continued north to New Plymouth stopping at Stratford to visit the Mount Taranki National park and have a really nice lunch at The Mountain House just short of the highest point accessible by a vehicle. ASfter this we travelled on to the home of Jim and Nerida Ramsey who offered us accommodation at their luxury apartment overlooking Fitzroy Beach. Jim and Nerida stayed at our bed and breakfast a couple of years back and we've been in contact with them ever since
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MATHEW
non-member comment
havin a good time!!!!!!!!!!
I hope your both having a good time when are you comming back to somerset uk are you missing home? and would u like play in my snooker team in the summer i hope have good hoilday mathew