Rotorura to Wellington, the soggy slow way

The day started in its now traditional way,  with Maria reading excerpts from the etiquette section of The New Zealand Herald.  Favourites so far are "how do you tell someone they are showing too much arse-crack" and "how far away from the beach is it acceptable to wear budgie-smugglers".   Somehow I can't see The Daily Express using the term "arse crack" - unless of course the arse crack was suspected of murdering princess Di.
Today is a long drive down to Wellington.  Unfortunately NZ is being hit by the tail end of a cyclone...which is a posh way of saying it's p*ssing down. The "land of the long white cloud" has turned into the "land of the low grey murk".

Lake Taupo in the murk

Swans looking for a snack

We drive down alongside a grey looking Lake Taupo and then up along the desert road onto The Central Plateau.   The volcanoes of The Central Plateau are huge impressive mountains dominating the flat areas surrounding them...apparently.  The low grey murk mean that all we could see was a few grass tussocks and a lot of rain.

What the central plateau should look like

What we saw in a brief gap between rain storms

Now we stop for lunch at Waiouru,  well we would stop for lunch if only there was something for Maria to eat.  Small town NZ, really doesn't cater for Vegetarians - well they do, with a cheese sandwich but that's about it.  We give up trying to find something at Waiouru and try somewhere larger - Taihape.  This isn't much better and we finally end up in Subways, which is not really experiencing the place but my suggestion that Maria try the steak pie wasn't greeted with much enthusiasm.
We head down towards Wellington, when suddenly the road comes to a complete halt.  We spend 3 hours without moving.  Apparently there was a double fatality in a crash that had blocked both lanes,  so us and hundreds of other cars were stuck with nowhere to go.

The soggy view from our hotel room

We got to a soaking Wellington at 7pm after a gruling 10 and a half hours on the road.  Exploring the town wasn't really an option now, so we settled for dinner in the hotel and then bed.



Not a good day.