rotorua

As we were leaving Rotorua and its wonderful rotten-eggs sulfur aroma, we stopped to fill up the car and I noticed this 98 octane biofuel pump. The price was a little higher than the 91 octane regular, but not out-of-whack compared to the usual higher-octane gas. Do we have biofuel pumps at normal gas stations in the States? I haven’t seen them yet, but I didn’t do a whole lot of driving when I was back, and none outside Virginia. Anyway, just thought that was pretty interesting.

Jamie and I spent an hour or so trout-spotting along one of the rivers in town, but didn’t have any luck, so we decided to keep the fly rods in the car for now and head on down the road. We realized our original road trip plans, which included the Far North and skiing on Ruapehu, were far too ambitious, so we’ll just mainly do the East Coast and lower North Island now.

We drove through Whakatane and Ohope today, nice coastal towns on the Bay of Plenty. I’m still fighting a bad sinus infection, so I’m not very good company and also not very motivated to suggest stops along the way…hope this goes away soon!! We stopped for lunch at a nice beach with White Island visible in the distance. A few kms down the road, a little white church glowed in the sun right on the coast – it’s been raining on and off and we caught it just as it stopped.

Lesson of the day: when you’re driving into the boondocks [Waihau Bay/Opotiki is a good example], it’s helpful to go grocery shopping beforehand. Also, just because a camp has a communal kitchen doesn’t mean it has pots, pans, dishes or utensils. Fortunately I had some Trader Joe’s mac n’ cheese and a can of tuna from home, so we made that with water and oil instead of milk and butter, and it actually turned out pretty well. We cooked it in a little pot and frying pan from my mess kit – also useful – and ate it with my new titanium backpacking utensils (yay! I love them) and Air New Zealand plastic ones.