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I’ll call this week my tour my aimless tour of the north island of New Zealand.  I never really knew where I should go to or where I would end up.  Every time I consulted my guide book I would end up passing my turn off or find that the place wasn’t really what they described.  So I stopped consulting the guide book and just went with my own instincts.

I stayed away from bigger towns and went for the smaller ones to eat and sleep at.

This method helped me stumble onto some cool free camping and a stay at some wacky hotels.  One hotel that I was at was huge and I was the only guest.  The place looked like it was once nice, but had since been run into the ground since the mid eighties.

Hotel rooms seem to come standard with an in room sink here.

I met up with two Scottish fellows that I had met earlier in the trip in the south island.  I hung out with them in Rotorua at Sunspots the local kayaking gathering place.

I almost went kayaking with them, but the area is known for it’s crime rate and since I felt so uneasy about all my stuff being stolen from my car while I was on the river I didn’t make the run.  While driving to the put in, the biggest Moari I have seen yet, and mind you, they are all built like tanks, well this one was cursing at me I guess for driving too fast down a dirt road.  I knew that if I got in the river he would come down to my car and jack my shit.  I think I dodged a bullet there.

I am going back to Wellington right now.  I am going to see Passion of the Christ tonight with Justin and zee Germans.  Then he and I are going to climb Mount Taranaki this weekend.  Hopefully we can make it to the beach as well for some kayaking in the surf.  I’ve never done that before and have always wanted to.

The temperatures are beginning to drop a little here.  Hopefully it won’t become full on fall for a while longer.  It will be nice to come home to warm weather after leaving two months of warm weather here.