We woke up to the sound of raindrops hitting the roof. Before making breakfast, we went to the showers in the amenities building. The earth outside our van had really started turning into mud, but with the right shoes that don’t matter. Taking a hot shower in the cold morning makes you want to face the day ahead of you.
Back in our van, we ate breakfast and packed up. We drove off but stopped at the visitor centre right next to the campsite. They had several exhibits there, and we got to know about the different eruptions of the volcanos in Tongariro National Park. We saw a stuffed kiwi, and we got to know that possums are regarded as pests in New Zealand because they hurt the tree flora and spread tuberculosis.
Because of the rainy and foggy weather we decided not to go on a hike in the area, and we weren’t even able to see the Ruapehu volcano that otherwise makes up the backdrop of Whakapapa Village. Instead, we drove north out from Tongariro National Park towards Lake Taupo and Taupo.
In Taupo, we filled up on diesel after making a loop in the roundabout because we weren’t allowed to make a right turn at the gas station. We stopped again for lunch at Huka Falls where we met a lovely local couple with whom we shared the park table. We ate soup and finished off with a cup of coffee.
After lunch, we hiked from Huka Falls along the river down to a hot spring Linnea had heard about from a friend back home. Although we didn’t feel like bringing swimmers with us, since it was a long walk back to the car and the pools we had waiting for us at the campsite in the evening was enough bath time for that day. When we got to the spring, there were several other people bathing. Linnea took her shoes off and dipped her feet in, the water was really warm and nice.
We headed back to the Huka Falls and watched them more closely. Just as we came, there was a jet boat loaded with tourists that raced up to the biggest drop in the fall and they did a couple of laps in the waves beneath it and waved at us.
Driving back onto state highway five, we headed towards our stay for the evening Rotorua. There we had booked a night at the Top 10 Holiday Park, a big chain of campsites that are all over New Zealand apparently. All was well when we got there, the guy at the office was friendly and instructed us how to get to our spot that was right next to the pools. He also made a call to the local stand up paddle boarding agency, since Linnea hadn’t been able to reach them earlier during the day. Unfortunately, they weren’t operating at the moment because of bad weather.
Again, we could see that companies should be clearer how they operate during winter in NZ. Also, as Swedes, we kind of laughed at them for calling 15 degrees and a bit cloudy bad weather. People in Sweden wear shorts when it’s like that in spring.
We got to our spot and plugged the campervan in. We heard a sudden fizzing noise, but nothing happened. We tried again. Still nothing…
After a while, we walked back to the office and asked if they could help us. A woman came out and tried their test-plug in the power outlet and said that nothing was wrong with it. She said that we could try another outlet of a different model at another spot and see if that worked. It didn’t.
She then told us that we had to call our rental company and make them help us because there was nothing more they could do. And we also had to drive our car back to the first spot because we couldn’t stay in that one.
We were both really annoyed by this since we thought that surely they must have a spare cable that they could borrow us for one night if ours didn’t work in their outlet. After all, we had paid more than 50 dollars for a single night at a POWERED spot. But nope, the single thing you need to get power to a campervan they didn’t have. So we called Apollo, and they simply said that surely we should be able to lend a cable, and if not we could buy a new one at a store and they would reimburse it once we handed the van back in.
We asked the staff at the office for the nearest store where we could buy a cable, and a woman said that there were one just across the street that should have them. Notice she said should instead of that she knew it.
We walked to the store called MEGA. Fortunately, they were still open although it was a Saturday at five o’clock. After asking several people and closely scanning the electronics isle, we concluded that they had no camping cables. We felt cheated and walked back to the campsite. Once there we gave our cable another go, and what do you know, this time, it worked! So we fixed our cable all by ourselves, thanks for nothing Top 10 Holiday Park (more like bottom ten from our experience).
Now when we had power, we decided to eat, but before that we went to the geothermal pools that were located on the campsite. There were two pools, one at 38 °C and one at 40 °C. It was really nice and relaxing to sit in them, but the water in them had a yellow tint (hopefully) from the naturally occurring sulfur and the eggy smell that it brings with it. The smell was only noticeable for a while.
When our fingers started to feel like raisins, we got up and took a shower to get rid of the smell. After showering, we made dinner and watched some youtube clips as the wifi connection actually seemed to manage it. Then we went to bed one hour earlier than usual as New Zealand was changing to daylight savings time during the night making our night one-hour shorter.
/ L&G
