End Mileage: 172879

Start Mileage: 172538

Distance Travelled: 341

We left Haslip Manor about 9:50am (not bad as we wanted to leave before 10am!). Off via SH1 south and turned onto SH2 to go past the Castle Diary at Mangatawhiri (no ice cream stops this time though). Of course there was a queue of traffic just before the dairy, the traffic was moving but slow. Mostly due to people slowing down to watch a woman changing her tyre.

First stop at 10:48am for coffee at “The Woodturners Cafe”, just off from SH2 where it turns off towards Ngatea. We have stopped there before – awesome coffee and whilst we didn’t have any food it all looked lovely. We then tootled on off to Ngatea and stopped at the Gemstone Factory. A large variety of gem stones and what they all mean but the made up jewellery and all that wasn’t very inspiring.

The factory itself is an ex Dairy Plant now panted in a bright yellow with a red roof – even the rubbish tins in the car park matched (yellow bins with red tops). Pretty freaky really.



Saw three 4 or 6 berth campers all parked in Ngatea – the guys all standing around talking in their checked shirts and walk shorts, I’m sure they’d fit right into a Bingo evening with the Caravan Association, finished off of course with a cuppa.

Left Ngatea about 11:38am and headed off to Paeroa. Didn’t stop here, straight up the Karangaheke Gorge and through to Waihi and then the road to Tauranga. We got to Katikati about 12:30pm and oh dear just through Katikati is of course Morton Estate, BILITY seemed to have a mind of her own and pulled into the car park. Must have been the “hello there” from the yellow Peugeot 306 convertible that was also parked in the vineyard car park (with its roof down of course). Newer registration than mine but silly us we didn’t check out the details on the front on the car to see when it was first registered – duh. Newer model though – could tell from the different wing mirrors and also a different boot latch and looked like it had a retractable aerial.

BILITY at Morton Estate.

I did ask in the cellar room who the Peugeot belonged too (well I just had too). Two couples from Wellington – the chick owner had brought the car itself recently from Auckland and was enjoying it. They were doing a “Topless Tours” of the local vineyards and having a great time.

OK so we did buy some wine – they had some Unoaked Chardonnay for $8.95 rather than $14.95 or something so we put two bottles of that in BILITY. Seemed a shame not too.

Got to Tauranga and did a drive around “down town” – I wanted a Dick Smith so I could get a car charger for the iPod as I had left mine in my own car. We did find a Dicko’s and got the charger so that was really good. Continued on SH2 to the Mt Maunganui turn off and then down towards Rotorua/Whakatane. We did do a quick drive around Papamoa to see if we could find a beach side park for lunch but we were well too late in the day for a free place for us. As it was a lovely sunny day the beach was rather busy and all the spaces with a view were taken.

We drove down the beach a little way but while there were parks there was a great view (of a sand dune), no direct view of the beach itself so we kept on driving. Even had a look at Papamoa Hills Regional Park around 2:30pm and then drove out and ended up at Maketu for lunch. Awesome beach – a lagoon for safe swimming and the surf beach was there if wanted as well. Not too many people so we backed on to the grass and had a view of the beach while we had our ham sandwiches (and coffee) with Racing Rabbit supervising.

We left around 2:50pm for the next stint and back (of course) on to SH2 to go to Matata where there were bad floods back in September 2005. The devastation was amazing – boulders and trees strewn up on the side of the road and looked like flood damaged houses on the coast. These had been lovely huge places that were now probably not habitable. Did go to take a side road that had signed through to where we wanted to go but about 50 metres up the road there were boulders and trees in the way so we did a U-turn and turned off from SH2 up another side road only a little way further down. After all, no trip is complete without a U-turn. So off to Manawahe – the road we took comes out at Lake Rotoma on SH30. Could still see a lot of where trees had been bowled by the floods, rocks moved and roads slipped away. Not a bad drive through to SH30 though – no traffic to speak off. Got to Lake Rotoma and then off to our right to Lake Rotoiti where we turned up just before 5pm to Chris and Nolene's.

Also at Chris and Nolene’s were Gavin and Wendy and their son Toby who is about 15 months, with their Golden Retriever Bailey and Birman Casper, Toby and the animals are fairly laid back! Michelle and her three (Taylor, Jamie and Jake) were also there. Of course Chris and Nolene’s own dog Casey and cat Brandy made up the family grouping.

When we got there Chris, Gavin, Michelle, Jamie and Toby were all out on the ski boat. You could tell when Chris had kids were in the biscuit – Chris went quite a bit slower.

They all came back and Chris, Gavin and Michelle were going to go back out on the ski boat for a ski (well Chris was driving and the others were going to ski) so Rex and I went to “supervise”. Awesome boat – a Lewis. Both Gavin and Michelle did some skiing – I think Chris’s main aim was to see how long before who ever was on a ski fell off. Once back to shore Rex and I went for a row along the beach and back in a dingy, Rex rowed, and I just looked on! Great beach and some awesome old and new homes.

Back to the house for pre-dinner drinks and nibbles while the little people ate.

We then had a BBQ dinner sitting on the deck looking at the lake and as the night got darker trying to spot satellites. It seems that satellite spotting is a favourite past time, of course we saw none – cloud too low which made it difficult to see any stars let alone satellites. Well there are plenty more nights to try for a satellite.

Off to bed and first holiday night in BILITY which we had parked in Nolene and Chris’s driveway. This worked well as we were sheltered on 3 sides and didn’t get any noise from the wind and rain that apparently came up over night. Won’t mention where the noise came from as after all it was both sides of the camper and it was only the first night ;-)

Lake from the "bach":	Always a Seagull or two around water:
The holiday home from the lake edge:	BILITY all settled for the evening:

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