An interim day

Or in other words we spent most of out time moving from Picton (South Island) to National Park (a village in North Island). This involved 3.5 hours on a ferry plus an hour waiting to board and 5 hours in the car driving north. Not a lot to say really!!  The place we are staying has certainly seen (much) better days, but we are here for the sole purpose of tackling the Tongariro Alpine Crossing tomorrow and the hotel provides transport for the linear route, so we are happy enough - although relieved we though to buy food for dinner, breakfast and lunch before we got here!

Some items of modest interest from the drive:

Passing through the town of Bulls we saw a sign - 'Bulls, a town like no udder' (please all groan in unison!), also on a hall it had a sign 'Befriend a Bull' - Bulls relationship club.  

Or how about the bakery - 'Kiss and Bake Up' or the cafe in a Church offering 'Heavenly Coffee'.

My favourite of the day however was Mangaweka International Airport advertising 'Hot Coffee and Cool Plane' - note the use of the singular!!  Quite where it went internationally is anyone's guess - all we could spot was half of an old 1950s plane advertising 'adventures' and a stubble field which might have allowed a couple of kites to take off.  I somehow doubt there will be many A380s landing there in the immediate future.

Anyway hopefully I will be able to bore you all rigid with tales of our expedition tomorrow including photos - for now a few from Picton