Day 18 - Mon 29 Oct

The best we saw of Mt Ruapehu

Fine or wet? Stay or go? What would it be? Well, when we first woke up it was blue sky above, but heavy cloud all around, and that heavy cloud soon had its way. In gloom and showers, with the same forecast for the next four days, we decided to give up on hiking around Tongariro and head towards Napier. This was disappointing since we'd been looking forward to doing some hiking, and this is really the first time on this trip that we've had to move on feeling like we didn't really get to do the place justice. We did, however, decide to drive the longer route up the east side of the National Park on the off-chance that we got a clear patch and could at least see the snow capped mountains. We did have a slight win there with brief views of the lower slopes, but no sign of the peaks.

So we completed our circuit of the National Park heading east to Waiouru then north along Desert Road (though nothing we would recognise as a real desert). We rejoined yesterday's road and retraced our steps through Rangipo, Turangi and back into Taupo. From there we headed south-east, through Tauhara Forest and the Ahimanawa and Maungaharuru Ranges through plenty of beautiful, hilly farming country.

Ahimanawa and Maungaharuru Ranges

From there we entered the Hawkes Bay area, as evidenced by the appearance of several vineyards and wineries. We resolutely ignored these as we headed into town, intending to come back tomorrow better informed before wasting our hard-grown brain cells. Wandering around town we saw a few of the Art Deco buildings for which Napier is famous, before finding our night's accomodation so Em could do some washing. Then Cam had a shave, we put on some real clothes (for the first time this trip) and went out for dinner at a very nice restaurant called Shed 2 in the trendy West Quay area of Napier (most tender piece of steak I can remember).

The other point worth noting is that as we drove from Taupo to Napier, the weather gradually improved, until by the time we reached Napier, we were happy to sit outside in t-shirts under a bright blue sky. Seaside resort weather for a seaside resort town. It better damn well still be raining in Tongariro, that's all I can say!