Saturday dawned fine in Marton. It also dawned on us that we had no plan for the day or where we were going from there. Not surprisingly we ended up staying and enjoying the day. Later in the afternoon we went for a walk to visit friends of Wyn’s who live in a lovely old home with many rooms each of which is bigger than our entire (mobile) home. Yesterday morning they came round to visit us in our (mobile) home. I took advantage of a tap to give Suzi a long-overdue wash. And then with a proper ladder took to cleaning the inside of the luton/bedroom windows. Plus fixed a blown brake light that Wyn had spotted when following Suzi in Wellington.
The afternoon was a few hours old by the time we finally headed off from Marton, north-west to Whanganui and New Plymouth. Our old BP booklet claimed that there is a BP truckstop not far off the main road in Whanganui – and we needed more fuel. If there is a truckstop there we never found it. There was a BP service station nearby so we unhitched the car to get in. It was all very time-consuming and frustrating. Even the access off the road was dodgy, dragging the tow-bar to add to the scrapes. All the fuel pumps insisted on pre-payment before you could take fuel. It was that sort of place.
After what seemed like an eternity I was happy to get out of Whanganui and head on north-west. Mt Taranaki was hiding it’s top in cloud but there was even a glimpse of that through a break. This meant it was a good day in Taranaki. We noticed all the dairy farms with no sign of irrigation. It looks like they must get enough water from the sky in these parts. Wyn drove from Hawera so I had fun checking out the sights on the way.
We went to visit kiwifruit friends Mike and Kath and had a lovely dinner and catch-up. And much later went and parked up near the golf course with a nice view of Fitzroy Beach and the sea and the walkway and all the cyclists and walkers. There’s a lot to like about New Plymouth.
