Last week The Duchess and I booked Penny in with her favourite dogsitter and headed Oop North on a Monday to Friday trip away. Here’s a brief summary
- Monday:
- Nice steady drive up from Welly to Rotorua via the Desert Road, lots of tunes, stops to take in a Dutch themed village with windmill and a Maccers break, only marred by a wagtail flying into our grill at 100kmph.
- Lovely steak on Eat Street then decent night’s kip at the Novotel in Rotorua
- Tuesday:
- Fairly disappointing fry-up at the hotel (chicken sausages and undercooked bacon, no beans or mushroom, poor for a hotel chain).
- Brief walk around the city center, highlight being a wander round a historic hotel.
- The Duchess had had enough of the rotten egg smell, so we checked out early and drove over to Hamilton, deciding not to bother with the thermal pools or trip to Hobbiton.
- Checked into self-contained apartment at the back of a rather posh house in a horsey area of Hamilton called Tamahere. Fecking freezing, wrapped up warm until the heaters finally kicked in. Owner’s boxer dog didn’t like us and kept coming to tell us in no uncertain terms every 30 minutes. Discovered a channel on the TV that plays nothing but Pointless which is pretty much all I watched while there.
- Drove into Hamilton in the evening to meet up with our South African ex-neighbours, the daughter having had a nasty accident and breaking her foot.
- Wednesday:
- Back into Hamilton, dropped The Duchess off in East Hamilton to enjoy a long natter with her friend while I nipped into Hamilton CBD to have a wander round and check out the bookshops, though turned out to be just the one.
- Rested back at the apartment, more abuse from boxer dog drowned out by episodes of Pointless and a heat pump on full power.
- Drove to North Hamilton to catch up with old friends that had moved away from Upper Hutt before Covid, really enjoyable natter over a Thai meal. The fact the husband is looking more like Shaun Johnson as he ages was welcome news to The Duchess.
- Thursday:
- Original plan was to drive on to Taupo and stay another night, but by this point we felt like we’d had a break and were longing for our beds, not to mention Fluffy.
- We checked out of the apartment, much to the relief of the boxer dog, and headed back down South to Wellington.
- Midway round Lake Taupo had a call of nature that couldn’t be ignored and made a cheeky pitstop at a camping ground to use their toilet, given I wouldn’t have been able to hold it in until the next public loo. Mid-flow interrupted by loud banging on cubicle door and angry woman ranting – thankfully calmed down by The Duchess before I zipped up who explained it was a medical condition. Yeah, it’s called getting old.
- Friday:
- Took a day trip up the coast to do some birthday present shopping with The Duchess, do a bit of Op Shopping and generally enjoy the last day of freedom.
- Picked up fluffy from the dog sitters and got back to normal.
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