A lot of nothing in Rotorua

 March 13th

So last night, a knock on the door, it was the park warden asking if we had proof of payment. The set up here was use that Kiwicash fob to tap on the units to pay the fee, 40 dollars would have been the payment for the overnight stay. We tried, after the fiasco with the shower it was the next thing we did.  Nothing appeared on the unit,  not a mention of the fee we had to pay or that it had even registered the fob. so we left it. Then  after dinner I tried the fob again at the sinks. 7 minutes of how water, plenty to wash up all the pots but again nothing! So when that warden came a knocking we told him of all the problems, how we had emailed the company about the showers and that there were problems with the units themselves. He apologised, wrote it all down in his book and waived the fees for last night's stay saying he would put the number plate down with 'fees waivered' next to it.

A very lazy start this morning, there was nothing to do but wait for tomorrow when I hope to get my hair done. So what to do? Well we found another Liquid Launderette, did a bit of shopping, and found a post office to pay the RUC (road user charge) on the Toy. Those folk with petrol engines pay this charge automatically at the pump, their petrol prices are much higher than the price we pay for diesel. But of course we don't get away without paying for the up keep of the roads and therefore for most diesel vehicles, you need a distance licence which must be purchased in 1000km units (or multiples of 1000). The object is to buy a new licence before you’ve driven all the distance covered by the previous licence. Click HERE. It explains it all and so far we have done roughly 13000 km, that's a fair few post office stops!

Having done nearly everything in Rotorua, we drove to where we could stop overnight. It was at Trout Pool Reservoir. The Okere Falls and Trout Falls on the Kaituna River could be walked to from here, we did that back in November last year. Well we did it again but somehow took a different path, appeared to be the way the canoeists went. I found out that the Kaituna River has the highest commercially rafted waterfall in the World! Anyway I digress, we found steps leading down to the water's edge and a path that disappeared into the undergrowth. With no sign of the falls we decided to take that path. We got wet! It had rained moments before and the leaves were still depositing the water from off their surface and we got most of it!

 

We found the falls though! 

We are in an empty car park. No one has joined us...yet. So very quiet here if only we could have put the chairs out to enjoy sun and a beer. But its raining, has been on and off all day, I do hope the weather picks up for our final few days left in New Zealand. March 20th we fly to Oz, more adventures to come especially taking the Ghan from Darwin to Adelaide.