Day Seventeen – Chasing Solitude

Up early, we gaze out the large window to properly appreciate our view of the Lake Taupo and the far horizon where we came from yesterday. This morning those mountain tops are obscured by white clouds and the TV news announces that the Desert Highway is closed due to an early winter storm that has dumped 15 inches of snow across it. When we drove it yesterday, the sun shone brightly on the many sheep dotting the sides of the road and despite the wind, it was downright balmy. We take the news with a grain of salt but the picture on the front page of the local newspaper is of a helicopter hovering with a cargo net holding five or six sheep being airlifted to lower ground. Beneath the net are dozens more semi-buried-in-snow sheep awaiting their taxi ride to warmer climes. Weather Karma once again is overly kind to this New Zealand exploration. We are now quite pleased we did not stay that extra day in Wellington. The TV announcer also mentions that yesterday on his day off, he visited a most incredible place. He describes the small waterfall with the seal pups. He had visited it only one day after us and experienced exactly the same sense of magic as did we. Now everyone in NZ will know about this place and it will be so crowded as to be impossible to enjoy. Or maybe the pups will just stop coming when so many people are about.

Kris goes shopping while I “take a bit of a wander” as Rick would put it, but pull up short beneath the protruding nose of a McDonnell DC-3 aircraft. Renowned as one of the most efficient, safe and forgiving airplanes ever built, this one is now the main dining room of the local McDonald’s Hamburger Emporium. I chuckle at the irony of a McDonnell’s doing duty at a McDonald’s but soon find an empty coffee shop to sit down with a cappuccino to write this blog entry. Why is it that invariably when I choose the coffee shop because it is empty, it immediately fills up with parents and rug-rat offspring? In this instance, three moms with four kids and a screaming baby. They are impervious to their offspring’s annoying racket. This may be the only time I appreciate the New Zealand custom of no re-fills on coffee. I am too cheap to pay for a second cup (about $4.50 throughout the country) and therefore can leave sooner than I would have if they had re-filled my cup. I locate Kris but as we drive out of town, she realizes she has missed the best shopping district by one block. Alas, New Zealand roads are narrow and I am forced to keep going since I cannot find a wide spot in the road to do a U-turn. Kris thinks plenty of places are wide enough but like every woman I’ve ever known, she has spatial relationship issues and obviously is not qualified to assess the width of the safe U-turn distance.

Soon enough, scenic vistas and rushing waterfalls dull her sense of loss and we stop in the heart of the Rotorua Volcanic Area. Lunch consists of fries and “the World Famous Rotorua Lamb Burger.” At least this time they are not hyping it as the “best lamb-burger” in the world. With good reason I learn, as mine contains three large chunks of bone so I assume it is local lamb, ground locally, if imperfectly. The bone hunks do not affect the interesting taste however. As we drive through the national park, we pass numerous small streams and ponds with steam rising from them but having spent much time in Yellowstone, we stop seldom. Been there, done that, got the Tee shirt. Another narrow winding mountain road leads us to the base of the Coromandel Peninsula.

As dusk turns to night we locate a little two story motel at the harbor’s edge but the woman explains she has only an upper available. The price is a bargain… or so I thought. Twenty-two wet and slippery outdoor wooden steps later, I put down the two suitcases just inside the door. At once I know why she advised me to turn on the bed warmers before we went out to dinner. Three degrees colder and frost would cover all the surfaces inside of the rooms. Again, no internal heating except for a small electric heater in the living room and of course, the ubiquitous electric blankets. We turn them on and go out to find dinner. The only place open is what Kris describes as the “sorriest bar” she has ever seen in her life. We make do with a bit of cheese, bread and fruit left over from our car snacks. However, the bed is warm and the rooms clean in this isolated outpost of humanity replete with a large dollop of solitude. Kris may not have found any bargains in this morning’s shopping but we certainly found one here in Whangamata. That’s pronounced “Fangamata” for you Yanks.