It took a while to get out of Raglan. We’d enjoyed our three days there and were reluctant to leave. The afternoon was well on before we finally headed out towards Hamilton. Not far from there we turned south. We made a stop at Pirongia before carrying on to Otorohonga where we parked up just outside the town. We watched another spectacular sunset before serttling down.
We stayed put next morning so that I could tackle my tax returns. It’s a tricky process when you need to ring them when they won’t allow 0800 calls from mobile phones and I only have a mobile phone. Somehow I lucked onto a backdoor in their phone system and was able to get my returns lodged. So we headed on south, unsure of how far we’d get. The day was turning out better and we were getting glimpses of the mountains, Ruapehu particularly. We stopped for lunch and then stopped for a look at the Raurimu Spiral where the railway line ties itself in knots to gain 200 metres. We pulled in to National Park with a cold wind and great views of the mountains. We parked up at a lodge with power points and walked across the road to watch the sun setting on the snows. Except the show came to an early end when a cold mist rolled in, obliterating everything.
Next morning was cold, wet, and windy. We took our time but eventually headed on. We fueled up at Waiouru (Suzi and us) and headed on in the rain. It got worse not long before we turned off to Marton. We parked up in Wyn’s brother’s drive in Marton and made ourselves at home. Time for some time beside the fire.
Thursday was a wet day. In between showers Wyn took me for a walk around her old home town. After a couple more rounds with IRD we managed to get the info we needed to file her return. It was good to get that all done for another year. I spent much of the day seeing if I could coax some better performance from my laptop. That and installing the software that came with my new camera. And starting to get to gripd with how it works.
Today we kept warm by the fire with the cat. And visited Wyn’s sister in Feilding nearby. And caught up on a few things.
