After a lazy morning, we packed up, said goodbye to our Kiwitea family, and got on our way. We had a lovely four days staying on their rural homestead, nice and relaxed indeed. We took quite a scenic drive north, up through Kimbolton, Apiti, and Rangiwhahia – we had stayed at Rangiwhahia a couple of times in the past. Not much there at all, except a nice peaceful Domain to park at. Then on through the papa rock cliffs, over the new to us bridge, with the old historic bridge beside us, into Mangaweka. It was a slow trip, but it’s always nice to take the slower route when on holiday.
Papa Cliffs over the Rangitikei River, new bridge and old bridge
Then it was straight up SH1 passing through Waiouru. It was clear that the school holidays were in full force as the carpark in the Waiouru Army Museum was full to bursting. Kids were everywhere, climbing over the tanks in front of the museum to their hearts content. A little further along the Desert Road we got a reasonable photo of Mt Ruapehu.
Mt Ruapehu
And to the right of Ruapehu was Mt Ngauruhoe, which featured as Mt Doom in the Lord of the Rings films.
Mt Ngauruhoe
Our stop for the night was the NZMCA camp at Turangi. What a crowd there was, I counted 50 vans on site. Previously we had shared this large roomy camp with approximately 10 vans, so it seems that plenty of vans are on the road at this time of year.
Overnighting at Turangi
We took another “road less travelled” the following day,100km journey SH32 along the western side of Lake Taupo. Interesting little roads were branching off down to the lake, and we remarked that next time at Turangi, we really must stay for a few days and do some exploring in this area. We passed a sign saying “Steaming Cliffs” and there they were, thermal steam coming out of the hills in front of us.
Steaming Cliffs
We were heading for Lake Maraetai, at Mangakino, a freedom camping spot for a change, we don't often stay at these. The first area we checked out was full of campers and day trippers, no room for our long caravan here. Before we moved on to another area I stopped to take a photo of this interesting set up. How about is cute little caravan!
Cute little tear drop caravan
We found another area not to far away with plenty of room for us to get set up. But…….. on arrival when I was moving Gemma from the car to the caravan we were set upon by the neighbour’s off lead little dog! That's one of the reasons we don't do freedom camping, people don't care that their dogs run free into other peoples camp sites. And the reply when I mentioned that we had a cat and could they please keep their dog under control? “Oh”, she said, “Our dog is trained not to chase cats, and we cant find the lead”.
Lake Maraetai
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