18th March 2017
I sleep well - very well. Aided I should think, by the six-pack and late night pizza drunk me thought was a good idea. Sober me isn't so sure...
I shower and shave and feel a lot better - I pack my stuff up - my laundry has been done twice, as I misread the instructions for the dryer. As soon as I saw it had started a new cycle, I thought 'sod it' and threw some more powder in the chute...
I am not a clever man
The day is bright, with a high overcast and very little wind. It is forecast to be sunny from around 1100 and for the rest of the day, both here and at my destination - Tauranga - some 170km away.
However, I am not going to take a direct route...
The bike's packed and I'm saying goodbye to the cleaning staff at about 0920...
...the town is quiet, as it goes sleepily about its Saturday morning routine (I should imagine there are a few thick heads after St Patrick's Day parties last night). To Bettie's consternation I turn left at the end of the road, rather than right. Cue a seemingly endless series of suggestions to get me back on the course she has suggested. I have decided to circumnavigate Lake Taupō and then head for Tauranga.
The Morris Minor continues to sell itself at the side of the road...
It's about 65°F and a little humid, but it's a pleasant day for a ride.
As I leave town, there is a viewpoint on the right - so I stop and take a couple of pictures across the lake - the distant mountain has snow on its peak...
I have a good, fast (well, by NZ standards
) ride down the lakefront - some of the houses on the right are built right on the shoreline...
The road goes into some low hills and steers away from the lake for a couple of kilometres...
...but when it returns it's directly on the lakeside...
...and a lovely road to ride...
I meet plenty of traffic coming the opposite way...
...but I seem to have the road to myself in this direction...
...which is just fine by me...
Bettie still hasn't got the message and keeps trying to get me to turn around...
Eventually I turn right at the south end of the lake and start heading up the southwest shore and it dawns on her...
...and she starts plotting my route from this point...
The road climbs quite steeply into the hills at the southwest corner of the lake - and the views are fantastic...
This part of the road is well surfaced and - again - eerily free of traffic...
It's like being in the Shire again, though...
The pictures make it look like quite a dull day - which is misleading, since there is a warm breeze and it's a very comfortable ride...
The lower cloud has started to burn off now, leaving a pretty chaotic sky...
It's a great day to be on two wheels...
...although, despite drunk me's efforts last night, sober me is beginning to feel a little peckish...
So I decide to stop at the next café I see and at least have a cuppa...
Meantime, I'll just enjoy the view...
I notice a lot of aerials and antennae atop the hill in the middle distance...
...I suppose Gondor calls for aid electronically these days...
Ah-ha!
That'll do! (You didn't honestly think I was just going to order tea, did you?
)
This is a really nice little café sited right by the dam at the end of Lake Whakamaru...
...which the road passes over the top of...
Ignoring Bettie's advice again, I turn right towards Rotarua...
...which takes me down some tree-lined roads, which drops the temperature considerably...
...but I'm soon back on the lakeshore and in the sunshine - it's nearly midday now and I start seeing a bit more traffic around...
Just as I'm beginning to think I may have strayed into Wyoming...
...Bettie turns me left back onto Highway 5 "The Thermal Explorer Highway" towards Rotorua...
I stop at a filling station and fill up with Super - the broken fuel cap is behaving itself, so I think I'm going to get away with leaving the fix until the bike arrives back in the UK...
It's actually not far to Rotorua - which is somewhere I have wanted to go since I was a small child...
My Father used to keep a scrapbook of all the postcards people sent to him from all over the world. As he worked for a great deal of his life in the aviation industry a lot of these were from far flung destinations...
Amongst these was a picture of boiling mud. I can remember asking why it boiled and where it was. I can't remember where it was (although it may have been New Zealand), but when I found out that Rotorua had boiling mud pools, then it went on the list...
I arrive at the Te Puia site and am immediately directed to park in the disabled bay - hey-ho...
It is very expensive - although Kia, the lovely Maori girl behind the counter, gives me a coupon which reduces the basic ticket to about $NZ48. This allows me to see the Kiwis (huzzah! Been here over six weeks and have yet to see one!), the mud pools and the geyser...
I am just about to go through the entrance gate when I hear a staccato "Hai, hai, hai..." from behind me and this Japanese tour guide, trailing a long string of tickets behind him - and looking for all the world like a puppy who has stolen a string of sausages from a butcher's shop - runs to the gate and starts getting his charges in order...
I go into the grounds of the site. The entrance is a strange circular affair...
...which has fierce looking carvings cut into the supporting beams...
I can see the steam rising from the pools around the geyser in the distance...
...but I am on my way to the Kiwi enclosure to begin with...
Unfortunately, the Kiwi is nocturnal, so the enclosure is in almost total darkness. You're not permitted to photograph (even without flash), tap on the glass, enter into an inappropriate relationship, or groom the birds...
I enter the building with a few other visitors. The room is almost entirely dark, with a faint red light behind the glass separating us from the birds. With an electronic buzz a lift comes up with a goat tethered to it at the front of the enclosure. A young girl's voice at the back says:
"Why's there a goat? What's going to happen to the goat?"
Before anyone can answer her, the Kiwi comes crashing through the undergrowth with a bellow - its steroid-addled brain only able to focus on the kill...
Actually, a bird the size of a chicken, with a long beak, pads about in the front of the enclosure, foraging for food.
The goat and misuse of steroids idea would have made a better display, though...
Apparently the Kiwi lays an egg that is 20% of its body weight. Have a think about that. There used to be 12 Million Kiwis in New Zealand - there are now estimated to be 10,000. I do not think these facts are unrelated...
I take a stroll over towards the geyser. This reminds me of Yellowstone, the same faint smell of rotten eggs is on the air and the whole atmosphere is clammy with steam rising off the rocks...
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Hopefully that should be a very short video showing the bubbling and movement of steam...
It's quite active, but there's no eruption whilst I'm here...
These stone seats have geothermal heating...
...probably very good on a cold day...
The yellow sulphur stains are obvious here, but the smell of Sulphur Dioxide permeates the whole area...
Apparently the local Maori tribe have preserved rights to swim in the blue pool here...
This is a demonstration of how Maoris used the heat to steam food. Although I can't help feeling it would smell like Godzilla had farted on anything that was cooked this way...
<iframe frameborder="0" scrolling="no" width="1280" height="720" src="https://api.smugmug.com/services/embed/5783217679_X9SbB3P?width=1280&height=720&albumId=72937799&albumKey=VZL8HN"></iframe>
Mud pools!
Once again, that should embed a short video - worth watching for the sound alone, which was quite cathartic...
They don't really make an impact as a still pic...
Okay - I can strike 'Boiling Mud pools' off the list
I walk back out to the Adv and get kitted up. It's not far to Tauranga from here - but I don't intend to go straight to my motel. I set off...
This chap must be a badass - look at that skull on the filler cap of his people carrier...
Just as I'm leaving town, my attention is drawn to this...
...which is advertising 'Downhill Ball Rolling'. The basic premise is that you crawl through the red coloured tunnel into the middle of the ball...
...and then they push you down the hill.
I think I could probably do that without the ball...
The road to Tauranga is quite good. It passes through a twisty little gorge...
...which is good fun...
Sometimes the roadside advice signs really hit home...
I realised I was doing 80 in a 100 zone and accelerated...
I come around a blind left hand bend to find stationary traffic. They are trying to get past a tarp, which has landed in the middle of the road and are getting themselves in a right tizzy about it. I ride up the outside grab it with my left hand and drag it to the roadside, where I dump it and weigh it down with a log...
Onwards!
I am fast approaching Tauranga now - and Bettie tells me there's a toll road ahead...
Same price as a car - that's a bit crap. It's an electronic toll and I go on line later and pay it...
I ignore Bettie's directions again for a while, and head for the airport...
Tauranga clearly has a busy container terminal and has a thriving marine life - a hundred yachts bob gently at their moorings...
Pretty soon I'm parking right outside the entrance of the Classic Flyers Museum. First things first - tea...
This is a Louise Slice. I found it completely irresistible, delicious to eat, but it left an awful aftertaste, was definitely not good for me and I soon regretted having entertained the idea of ordering it.
About five people reading this will understand that.
Right - to business. They are preparing for an event this evening (probably associated with the DC3 I saw landing just as I arrived), so have pushed some of the exhibits outside...
Lots of interactive stuff aimed at kids here...
Not sure whether that's a plastic one up there (there was a major push in the eighties and nineties in the UK to replace 'real' gate guardians with plastic replicas, to preserve the old airframes - they turn up all over the place now).
P40 Kittyhawk in rather garish camouflage...
Beautiful replica of a Bristol Scout C...
Catalina fuselage...
...with JATO (Jet Assisted Take Off) points marked on the hull - that must have been an interesting experience...
Ah-ha! another Link trainer...
Wait a minute...
Aaargh! This is the machine I failed 'Flight Aptitude' on at Biggin Hill OASC in 1973! I never thought I'd see one again. The idea was to keep a dot in the middle square painted on the cathode ray tube in front of you, using the stick and pedals.
The problem was, if you'd done a bit of flying, you were at a huge disadvantage. Most of my flying had been done in Chipmunks, which require virtually no rudder input, so my natural reaction when the dot moved left or right was to counter steer using the stick. This had no effect - the stick was only for up and down movements and the pedals moved the dot left and right.
Not that I'm bitter you understand...
Look at these!
Brilliant - pedal planes!
Ah - bollocks...
I notice they have used their Fairey Swordfish...
...as the centrepiece of the kids' playground...
Can't be a real Swordfish, surely?
Nah - just checked - it's a replica...
Actually, I have a story about the Fairy Swordfish...
Some way into his WWII bomber tour, my Father & his best friend on the squadron were in the crew-room one morning (nursing spectacular hangovers) when a staff officer walked in. He asked if anyone was interested in volunteering to work with the Fleet Air Arm (Naval Aviation). To my Father's horror (the way he told it
) his friend put his hand up & said 'Me & Jim will do that'.
So it was (because he wasn't going to back down in front of his mate) that my Father found himself at Lossiemouth, on the Moray Firth, learning to fly the Fairey Swordfish, a large, obsolescent biplane torpedo bomber. A different prospect indeed to the Lancaster- the Swordfish had single radial engine and an open cockpit. As they got some hours on the type, they started practice landings on an aircraft carrier deck, which had been painted on the runway. Eventually their instructors decided that they'd had enough practice - it was time for the real thing.
A reserve carrier (I think Dad said it was ARGUS) sailed into the Moray Firth & my Father got airborne with his Royal Navy instructor. He set up correctly and - to hear him describe it - conducted a controlled crash onto the flightdeck. His instructor began to congratulate him on an excellent first landing when my Father interrupted him to ask when the ship would me sending a boat ashore. 'I don't know' said the instructor 'Why do you ask?'. 'Because' said Dad 'I am never fucking doing that again in my life...'.
He never did...
They have an eclectic mix of aircraft here...
...including this tubby old Avenger, in SEAC (South East Asia Command) markings - with the red disc left out of the normal roundel, to ensure no-one would mistake the markings for Japanese ones...
Shame they had the wings folded - it would be nice to see it fully unfurled...
This is the DC3 that taxied up just as I arrived...
...and I'm pretty sure the spread being prepared in Hangar One is for those that purchased the C47 Experience, or something similar...
Ah - the Harvard...
Now, if you were ever going to get me up in a classic aircraft, this one might just do the trick...
Hidden between hangars are the remains of an ex-NZAF de Havilland Devon...
It looks beyond redemption, but you never know...
They use this beautiful Boeing Stearman for joyrides...
OK - this is a long second to the Harvard...
There's a Yak 55 aerobat here, too - but I think that might be part of the aviation school (they do all sorts of stuff here - tail wheel training, aerobatics etc)...
An old Heron (four-engined version of the Devon/Dove pictured earlier) sits on the far side of the tarmac...
In get kitted back up and ride the short distance to my motel, where I am quickly checked in by Michael - a German - who informs me that they've just installed fibre-optic Broadband...
It's a one bedroomed apartment...
...ageing but perfectly serviceable. Nothing wrong with that...
I book in for two nights - I have somewhere to go tomorrow...
Good day...
I sleep well - very well. Aided I should think, by the six-pack and late night pizza drunk me thought was a good idea. Sober me isn't so sure...
I shower and shave and feel a lot better - I pack my stuff up - my laundry has been done twice, as I misread the instructions for the dryer. As soon as I saw it had started a new cycle, I thought 'sod it' and threw some more powder in the chute...
I am not a clever man
The day is bright, with a high overcast and very little wind. It is forecast to be sunny from around 1100 and for the rest of the day, both here and at my destination - Tauranga - some 170km away.
However, I am not going to take a direct route...
The bike's packed and I'm saying goodbye to the cleaning staff at about 0920...
...the town is quiet, as it goes sleepily about its Saturday morning routine (I should imagine there are a few thick heads after St Patrick's Day parties last night). To Bettie's consternation I turn left at the end of the road, rather than right. Cue a seemingly endless series of suggestions to get me back on the course she has suggested. I have decided to circumnavigate Lake Taupō and then head for Tauranga.
The Morris Minor continues to sell itself at the side of the road...
It's about 65°F and a little humid, but it's a pleasant day for a ride.
As I leave town, there is a viewpoint on the right - so I stop and take a couple of pictures across the lake - the distant mountain has snow on its peak...
I have a good, fast (well, by NZ standards
The road goes into some low hills and steers away from the lake for a couple of kilometres...
...but when it returns it's directly on the lakeside...
...and a lovely road to ride...
I meet plenty of traffic coming the opposite way...
...but I seem to have the road to myself in this direction...
...which is just fine by me...
Bettie still hasn't got the message and keeps trying to get me to turn around...
Eventually I turn right at the south end of the lake and start heading up the southwest shore and it dawns on her...
...and she starts plotting my route from this point...
The road climbs quite steeply into the hills at the southwest corner of the lake - and the views are fantastic...
This part of the road is well surfaced and - again - eerily free of traffic...
It's like being in the Shire again, though...
The pictures make it look like quite a dull day - which is misleading, since there is a warm breeze and it's a very comfortable ride...
The lower cloud has started to burn off now, leaving a pretty chaotic sky...
It's a great day to be on two wheels...
...although, despite drunk me's efforts last night, sober me is beginning to feel a little peckish...
So I decide to stop at the next café I see and at least have a cuppa...
Meantime, I'll just enjoy the view...
I notice a lot of aerials and antennae atop the hill in the middle distance...
...I suppose Gondor calls for aid electronically these days...
Ah-ha!
That'll do! (You didn't honestly think I was just going to order tea, did you?
This is a really nice little café sited right by the dam at the end of Lake Whakamaru...
...which the road passes over the top of...
Ignoring Bettie's advice again, I turn right towards Rotarua...
...which takes me down some tree-lined roads, which drops the temperature considerably...
...but I'm soon back on the lakeshore and in the sunshine - it's nearly midday now and I start seeing a bit more traffic around...
Just as I'm beginning to think I may have strayed into Wyoming...
...Bettie turns me left back onto Highway 5 "The Thermal Explorer Highway" towards Rotorua...
I stop at a filling station and fill up with Super - the broken fuel cap is behaving itself, so I think I'm going to get away with leaving the fix until the bike arrives back in the UK...
It's actually not far to Rotorua - which is somewhere I have wanted to go since I was a small child...
My Father used to keep a scrapbook of all the postcards people sent to him from all over the world. As he worked for a great deal of his life in the aviation industry a lot of these were from far flung destinations...
Amongst these was a picture of boiling mud. I can remember asking why it boiled and where it was. I can't remember where it was (although it may have been New Zealand), but when I found out that Rotorua had boiling mud pools, then it went on the list...
I arrive at the Te Puia site and am immediately directed to park in the disabled bay - hey-ho...
It is very expensive - although Kia, the lovely Maori girl behind the counter, gives me a coupon which reduces the basic ticket to about $NZ48. This allows me to see the Kiwis (huzzah! Been here over six weeks and have yet to see one!), the mud pools and the geyser...
I am just about to go through the entrance gate when I hear a staccato "Hai, hai, hai..." from behind me and this Japanese tour guide, trailing a long string of tickets behind him - and looking for all the world like a puppy who has stolen a string of sausages from a butcher's shop - runs to the gate and starts getting his charges in order...
I go into the grounds of the site. The entrance is a strange circular affair...
...which has fierce looking carvings cut into the supporting beams...
I can see the steam rising from the pools around the geyser in the distance...
...but I am on my way to the Kiwi enclosure to begin with...
Unfortunately, the Kiwi is nocturnal, so the enclosure is in almost total darkness. You're not permitted to photograph (even without flash), tap on the glass, enter into an inappropriate relationship, or groom the birds...
I enter the building with a few other visitors. The room is almost entirely dark, with a faint red light behind the glass separating us from the birds. With an electronic buzz a lift comes up with a goat tethered to it at the front of the enclosure. A young girl's voice at the back says:
"Why's there a goat? What's going to happen to the goat?"
Before anyone can answer her, the Kiwi comes crashing through the undergrowth with a bellow - its steroid-addled brain only able to focus on the kill...
Actually, a bird the size of a chicken, with a long beak, pads about in the front of the enclosure, foraging for food.
The goat and misuse of steroids idea would have made a better display, though...
Apparently the Kiwi lays an egg that is 20% of its body weight. Have a think about that. There used to be 12 Million Kiwis in New Zealand - there are now estimated to be 10,000. I do not think these facts are unrelated...
I take a stroll over towards the geyser. This reminds me of Yellowstone, the same faint smell of rotten eggs is on the air and the whole atmosphere is clammy with steam rising off the rocks...
<iframe frameborder="0" scrolling="no" width="1280" height="720" src="https://api.smugmug.com/services/embed/5783216188_MQPjLgF?width=1280&height=720&albumId=72937799&albumKey=VZL8HN"></iframe>
Hopefully that should be a very short video showing the bubbling and movement of steam...
It's quite active, but there's no eruption whilst I'm here...
These stone seats have geothermal heating...
...probably very good on a cold day...
The yellow sulphur stains are obvious here, but the smell of Sulphur Dioxide permeates the whole area...
Apparently the local Maori tribe have preserved rights to swim in the blue pool here...
This is a demonstration of how Maoris used the heat to steam food. Although I can't help feeling it would smell like Godzilla had farted on anything that was cooked this way...
<iframe frameborder="0" scrolling="no" width="1280" height="720" src="https://api.smugmug.com/services/embed/5783217679_X9SbB3P?width=1280&height=720&albumId=72937799&albumKey=VZL8HN"></iframe>
Mud pools!
Once again, that should embed a short video - worth watching for the sound alone, which was quite cathartic...
They don't really make an impact as a still pic...
Okay - I can strike 'Boiling Mud pools' off the list
I walk back out to the Adv and get kitted up. It's not far to Tauranga from here - but I don't intend to go straight to my motel. I set off...
This chap must be a badass - look at that skull on the filler cap of his people carrier...
Just as I'm leaving town, my attention is drawn to this...
...which is advertising 'Downhill Ball Rolling'. The basic premise is that you crawl through the red coloured tunnel into the middle of the ball...
...and then they push you down the hill.
I think I could probably do that without the ball...
The road to Tauranga is quite good. It passes through a twisty little gorge...
...which is good fun...
Sometimes the roadside advice signs really hit home...
I realised I was doing 80 in a 100 zone and accelerated...
I come around a blind left hand bend to find stationary traffic. They are trying to get past a tarp, which has landed in the middle of the road and are getting themselves in a right tizzy about it. I ride up the outside grab it with my left hand and drag it to the roadside, where I dump it and weigh it down with a log...
Onwards!
I am fast approaching Tauranga now - and Bettie tells me there's a toll road ahead...
Same price as a car - that's a bit crap. It's an electronic toll and I go on line later and pay it...
I ignore Bettie's directions again for a while, and head for the airport...
Tauranga clearly has a busy container terminal and has a thriving marine life - a hundred yachts bob gently at their moorings...
Pretty soon I'm parking right outside the entrance of the Classic Flyers Museum. First things first - tea...
This is a Louise Slice. I found it completely irresistible, delicious to eat, but it left an awful aftertaste, was definitely not good for me and I soon regretted having entertained the idea of ordering it.
About five people reading this will understand that.
Right - to business. They are preparing for an event this evening (probably associated with the DC3 I saw landing just as I arrived), so have pushed some of the exhibits outside...
Lots of interactive stuff aimed at kids here...
Not sure whether that's a plastic one up there (there was a major push in the eighties and nineties in the UK to replace 'real' gate guardians with plastic replicas, to preserve the old airframes - they turn up all over the place now).
P40 Kittyhawk in rather garish camouflage...
Beautiful replica of a Bristol Scout C...
Catalina fuselage...
...with JATO (Jet Assisted Take Off) points marked on the hull - that must have been an interesting experience...
Ah-ha! another Link trainer...
Wait a minute...
Aaargh! This is the machine I failed 'Flight Aptitude' on at Biggin Hill OASC in 1973! I never thought I'd see one again. The idea was to keep a dot in the middle square painted on the cathode ray tube in front of you, using the stick and pedals.
The problem was, if you'd done a bit of flying, you were at a huge disadvantage. Most of my flying had been done in Chipmunks, which require virtually no rudder input, so my natural reaction when the dot moved left or right was to counter steer using the stick. This had no effect - the stick was only for up and down movements and the pedals moved the dot left and right.
Not that I'm bitter you understand...
Look at these!
Brilliant - pedal planes!
Ah - bollocks...
I notice they have used their Fairey Swordfish...
...as the centrepiece of the kids' playground...
Can't be a real Swordfish, surely?
Nah - just checked - it's a replica...
Actually, I have a story about the Fairy Swordfish...
Some way into his WWII bomber tour, my Father & his best friend on the squadron were in the crew-room one morning (nursing spectacular hangovers) when a staff officer walked in. He asked if anyone was interested in volunteering to work with the Fleet Air Arm (Naval Aviation). To my Father's horror (the way he told it
So it was (because he wasn't going to back down in front of his mate) that my Father found himself at Lossiemouth, on the Moray Firth, learning to fly the Fairey Swordfish, a large, obsolescent biplane torpedo bomber. A different prospect indeed to the Lancaster- the Swordfish had single radial engine and an open cockpit. As they got some hours on the type, they started practice landings on an aircraft carrier deck, which had been painted on the runway. Eventually their instructors decided that they'd had enough practice - it was time for the real thing.
A reserve carrier (I think Dad said it was ARGUS) sailed into the Moray Firth & my Father got airborne with his Royal Navy instructor. He set up correctly and - to hear him describe it - conducted a controlled crash onto the flightdeck. His instructor began to congratulate him on an excellent first landing when my Father interrupted him to ask when the ship would me sending a boat ashore. 'I don't know' said the instructor 'Why do you ask?'. 'Because' said Dad 'I am never fucking doing that again in my life...'.
He never did...
They have an eclectic mix of aircraft here...
...including this tubby old Avenger, in SEAC (South East Asia Command) markings - with the red disc left out of the normal roundel, to ensure no-one would mistake the markings for Japanese ones...
Shame they had the wings folded - it would be nice to see it fully unfurled...
This is the DC3 that taxied up just as I arrived...
...and I'm pretty sure the spread being prepared in Hangar One is for those that purchased the C47 Experience, or something similar...
Ah - the Harvard...
Now, if you were ever going to get me up in a classic aircraft, this one might just do the trick...
Hidden between hangars are the remains of an ex-NZAF de Havilland Devon...
It looks beyond redemption, but you never know...
They use this beautiful Boeing Stearman for joyrides...
OK - this is a long second to the Harvard...
There's a Yak 55 aerobat here, too - but I think that might be part of the aviation school (they do all sorts of stuff here - tail wheel training, aerobatics etc)...
An old Heron (four-engined version of the Devon/Dove pictured earlier) sits on the far side of the tarmac...
In get kitted back up and ride the short distance to my motel, where I am quickly checked in by Michael - a German - who informs me that they've just installed fibre-optic Broadband...
It's a one bedroomed apartment...
...ageing but perfectly serviceable. Nothing wrong with that...
I book in for two nights - I have somewhere to go tomorrow...
Good day...
.
