This morning I woke to ice on my windscreen & moved the car into the sun to thaw out, after which I went for a hot soak in the spa at Tokaanu hot pools.
This place has been used for many years, by the Maori and other visitors to the area - the water is known for its healing properties.
Today, you can pay for a soak in a private pool - which is what I did - as the public pool is chlorinated and I thought it would be nicer to have the untreated water. The pools are a little dated & shabby but I liked the hot water which is, supposedly, genuinely heated by the thermal activity of the area.
There were rainbow trout in the stream outside which was a spawning area for them. I had a walk around the thermal garden afterwards, which was peaceful, and had my lunch there.
I then drove towards Wellington, where I had a great view of Mount Tongariro from the road & Mount Ruapehu,with snow on the top. These are both Volcanos.
They call this the desert road & the scenery changes dramatically from this
to rolling green hills like this
I did a little detour to a big town/city - Palmerston North - as they had a Kmart & I wanted to get a new mattress. Unfortunately they only had air beds. I ended up going to a place called The Warehouse and they had single bed size foam mattresses for $89 - which was more than I wanted to pay but I thought it was worth it for the comfort......I may keep the plastic on it & the receipt & possibly try to return it in Christchurch.....such a tight ass! I'll see how it goes......
I found the free camp ground from Wiki camps, just south of Palmerston, Kahuterawa Reserve. A peaceful little area amongst the trees, in a valley.
Just after I pulled in a man turned up in his camper. After that no-one else arrived & I felt a very tiny bit creeped out - my imagination was running a bit wild - and I did consider moving on, but I would have to drive a long way to find anywhere else.........
.........anyway.....I survived the night without being chopped up into little pieces and/or eaten.
It rained quite a lot, and I left early the next morning, my plan being to make it to Wellington early to visit the Te Papa Museum, which is supposed to be really good.
I had the radio on, tuned to Sounds - which plays rock, and it was banging out some great songs, including this one - which kind of went with the scenery somehow
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