Wellington, New Zealand

One of the greatest contributions of the Twentieth Century, right up there with sliced bread, night baseball and the iPod, is the collapsable passenger-side rearview mirror. So there I am, circling our Wellington hotel like an old hound dog looking for his bed after the GPS gal said “right” when she meant “left”. The streets are narrow, winding and on the side of a mountain. Traffic is heavy and cars are parked on both sides of the street. Judy sucks in her breath, but it is too late. THWAK. Her rearview mirror collapses, harmlessly to the side of the car. Thankfully, no damage done (at least to our car; I never saw what we hit) and one slight wrong turn later, we’re parked in our hotel’s parking area. “Judy, I need a beer and a burger” was my comment as I switched off the ignition.

That was the end of a long but rewarding day. It turned out to be about seven hours of driving (including photo stops, gas, ice cream and you-know-what) and four hours of unexpected adventure on Mount Ruapehu in the Tongariro National Park, an hour or so south of Taupo. This was one of three long driving days in this trip.

We had planned a quick stop in the park, hoping for at most a two-hour hike followed by High Tea at the chateau. But when we stopped at the visitor’s center to ask directions, we were given a second option: a ride up the ski lifts that would take us to the chalet half way up the mountain. The day was beautiful so we pushed on up the hill and took a twenty-minute ride through fairly brisk and somewhat windy weather – probably near freezing at the chalet. The views, as you can see in the pictures, were magnificent.

There were even some die-hard spring skiiers out today. They rode the lifts we used but from there they had to slog on foot to the summit to reach skiable snow. I don’t know anyone who loves skiing that much. Wait a minute, yes I do . . . the Longo boys!

Unfortunately we dawdeled too long on the mountain so our hike turned out to be only an hour and we never made the waterfall at the midpoint of the loop. But we did have two nice phone conversations with Rebecca, Esme, Griffin and Kevin. The first call was from the chair lift as we made our way down. The kids were still trick or treating so we didn’t talk too long. Later, on our hike we completed our conversation.

High tea tasted great – scones with cream and jam plus hot chocolate but we missed on the ambiance department. Rather than going to the hotel’s main lobby where high tea with all the linen napkins and mountain views were to be had, we instead stumbled into the coffee shop. Same grub but not the full experience.Next time we will read the sign out front before committing to the coffee shop.

From there it was a five-plus hour drive through some spectacular countryside, twisting mountain roads with fresh views at every turn. As usual, the driving was as interesting as the sightseeing stop at the park.

Coming into Wellington is like entering any big city. Plenty of traffic but it moved along ok and until we hit the little kafuffel finding the hotel everything went without a hitch.

We checked in, got our bags and found the burger and beer I had my mind set on. We’re now in the room. I’m typing and Judy’s plotting our movements for tomorrow. On foot, I can guarantee you that!