28. Whanganui – New Plymouth

Friday, March 8: Rain on and off throughout the day

Paul’s (airbnb, $37.6)

Made the acquaintance of Sid & Angela at breakfast this morning, and a discussion of criticality followed – he was an (Indian) epidemiologist in public health, and I never found out what she did, except that she plays the piano rather well, and the upright in the lounge room was in tune. They escaped rather quickly after that and I was left on my own with Marina & Brennagh.

Surprise, surprise was that Dempsey’s had refunded me the full $108 I was asking for. There is a real issue of getting email through to them, though, as mine was already labelled as spam. I deleted my remark on their facebook page and will leave it at that for a while. Read more…

13. Waitonga Falls Carpark – Rangipo (RMT 1)

Thursday, February 21: Sunny to begin with, a couple of sprinkles and then some moderate showers

Tramping: 17.4 km

Rangipo Hut (Doc, $15)

Alan was up very early & off to work, long before I had to get up, but at around 7:00 I thought it would be enough time to throw stuff into the suitcase and complete packing for the tramp.

About the only things that weren’t up to scratch were that the compass hasn’t been calibrated, and it looks like I put in two hairbrushes; also the tripod should have been stripped of the gimbal attachment & the straps.

All was packed up & Jo and A. were on their way when I went out to the street to await my chauffeur, and Alan was already on his way back home. My driver had a couple of tips for me and we were soon at the drop-off point. He checked with his office about the return details so everything is in the green zone. Read more…


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