A few days with few pictures

Since I last updated, we have been doing some travelling but an awful lot of chilling out in places without taking many photos. After leaving the Mount, we headed for the Coromandel Peninsula, and stayed the night at Mercury Bay Motor Park, $37 for the night to camp but a bargain $10 each to hire kayaks for half a day. We spent a very enjoyable three hours paddling around the bay on the evening that we arrived, and have both got a taste for kayaking. The next morning, we took in Cathedral Cove before heading off to Hamilton for the night. The original plan had been to spend ten nights seeing a whole lot of places on the north end of the North Island, including Auckland, but that is going to have to wait for another holiday. We have been on the road for weeks, and energy levels (mine) and funds (both of ours) are running low. So we cut out Northland from the itinerary and started to head south again.

After a very enjoyable and relaxing night in Hamilton (The Eagle's Nest backpacker hostel, about $57 for a very servicable double room), the next top was Taupo. This is a very pretty lakeside location, and we stopped in the Top Ten campsite for the night. This campsite has some great facilities, including a swimming pool, and would be a fantastic place for a family to spend a few nights. Unfortunately we only had one evening there, so we weren't able to take full advantage of everything and get our $38 worth, but I would definitely recommend it.

Next stop was Palmerston North - not a traditional stop on the tourist route, but somewhere that I thought might be an option for us to live in. We spent two nights there, at my insistence, because I just wanted to chill out for a full day and do nothing in particular. Skry loves to have a packed itinerary, but I find it wearing after a while, and wanted some time off! We stayed for two nights ($58/night) in a rather strange hostel called Pepperpot. The hostel itself was fine - we had a decent triple room that wasn't linked to the rest of the house and was accessible without going through any other areas - but the atmosphere was non-existent. Although there were plenty of other backpackers there, we were all feeling a bit oppressed by the laminated signs everywhere telling us what we could and could not do. No cooking after 9.30pm, no opening the windows when it's raining, no alcohol without advance permission from the manager, no drinks in the fridge (Fridges are for Food Only!), etc., etc. It didn't make for a relaxed environment. Luckily we were pretty much self-contained, so we just came and went as we pleased. Palmy is a university town these days and we had a really nice time just eating in cafes and a really good Turkish restaurant called Halikarnas, and indulging in a few pints in the Irish bars. We also spent some quality time feeding the ducks in the square - check out my Army of Duckness! We both really liked it here, and it is definitely hight on the list for our ultimate destination, due to how relaxed we felt there, how nice everyone was to us, and how many ducks there were. If you have never felt ducks walking over your feet and nibbling your jeans leg, you've missed out.