Te Kuiti - forgotten World Highway - Whangamomona - Mount Taranaki

Saturday 26.11: after packing everything & having breakfast with the others, we went to fill up the tank - when Fritz noticed that he had forgotten to put the tank cap back on during the last fill-up. At first, I thought he was joking, but indeed there was no tank cap in sight - so we bought a new one for $10 and continued driving - highway 46&47 to Te Kuiti. We spent the afternoon there with a take-away pizza in the laundromat.

In the evening, we went to the Mangaokewa scenic reserve where we camped for free again.

Unfortunately, it rained all night which resulted in me getting very little sleep.

Sunday 27.11: on Sunday, we drove the forgotten world highway - which was incredibly beautiful despite the bad weather (rain and fog at times).

We even drove through a completely abandoned town which was really cool & also extremely creepy in the weather.

Halfway through, we arrived in Whangamomona (a small town in New Zealand that has declared itself independent and is now its own republic. For $2, you can even get your own stamp in your passport here)

We had planned to camp here, but it was still raining so heavily that we decided to continue the rest of the way and go to a hostel instead.

The hostel where we have spent the last few - bad weather days is located right at the foot of Mount Taranaki - and if we had good weather, we would be able to see the mountain right behind the hostel - but unfortunately, it has been hiding in a cloud cover for the past few days.

The hostel is completely powered by renewable energy, the water comes from a river and is filtered & hot water is heated by the stove.

So really cool - we even have little calves in the garden that you can cuddle with if you feel like it.

Here at the hostel, there is also a pool table, table tennis, darts & a foosball table.

There is also a bathtub, which I of course immediately treated myself to on the first day - finally bath again.

Monday 28.11:

We went to New Plymouth to buy some things as our food supplies were running low - I treated myself to 2 packs of strawberries for dessert with sugar in the evening.

I also bought some new socks and a whole pack of new earrings - because I had forgotten mine at home and was starting to worry that my ear holes would close up.

Tuesday 29.11:

Since the weather still hasn't improved, I lazed around in the hostel all day, watched DVDs and munched on the leftovers from the day before.

Wednesday 30.11:

Tomorrow we will continue towards Wellington.

That means today we will plan the route a bit, check the weather, do some shopping, do laundry, and rearrange the car.