Bob & Jan Green RTW

Having stayed in Wellington overnight, we headed back up the North Island towards our overnight stop of Wanganui.

On the way we managed to contact more friends who were in NZ - Dave and Phil Beasley of B-Line fame!!! They happened to be travelling to Palmerston North and we arranged to meet up for a drink. They couldn't understand our bad luck with the weather - they had had sunshine most of the way during the last few weeks and whilst we were with them the sun did manage to shine once more!!

It was good to meet up with them and to hear from Phil, who had been in Sydney at the same time as us. Phil was, as usual, trying to stop Dave doing any wheeling and dealing (a thankless task!!!).

We then carried on northwards to Wanganui, passing through a town called Bulls. Here they had entered into the spirit of fun by naming most of their public buildings with "bull" associations!! Hence there was a pharmacy called "Cure-a-bull", a library called "read-a-bull" and even the police station had joined in with "Const-a-bull"!!!! Great fun!!

Wanganui was a lovely town on the river where we witnessed a regatta with several local rowing teams participating. We also enjoyed our first "stonegrill" meal where we were given hot stones and raw meat and cooked our own dinner!!!

As we set off from Wanganui towards Hamilton it was all blue sky and we admired the wonderful scenery and rolling hills as we headed towards the National Park and Mount Ruapehu.

Unfortunately, as has happened so many times in the last few weeks, the clouds and mist came down along with the rain and our chances of a sighting of this still active volcano were blown apart!!!

When we reached Hamilton we had hoped to visit their wonderful gardens but unfortunately the heavens once again opened, so we spent a quiet evening in watching the cricket (again!!).

Today we have made our final journey northwards to Auckland where we will hopefully be taking in the sights for the next couple of days before flying out to Los Angeles on Wednesday (7th).