Hello again!

We spent 4 nights at our lovely coastal cabin near New Plymouth. It may sound strange when we have this whole country to explore but we could have been quite happy there for longer. Long walks on black sand beaches, watching surfers tackle the waves and hikes on the volcano! The only drawback was that the winery was closed the whole time we were there!!!

Our route away from there was on the Forgotten World Highway! A very remote, windy road over 4 mountain saddles, not exactly what we call mountains, but still spectacular vistas. It is 150 km with very little in the way of facilities. And then about halfway thru we came to Whangamomona. As a side note here, the names of places are a challenge! Wh is pronounced F and most names are long strings of letters that don't always seem pronounceable!!

Whangamomona declared itself a Republic in 1989 because they were unhappy with a change in district boundaries. The past presidents have been a pig, a cow and a horse!! The will even stamp your passport for you as a visitor to the republic and all of their goods are imported from New Zealand! Sounds a bit like Danielle's plan for Alberta!!

Now we are in Turangi at a lovely B&B called the Olive Rabbit. It is about the only lovely thing in this town!! We chose it because it is close to the Tongariro National Park hike trails, and the main accommodation in the park, Chateau Tongariro, has just been closed!!! It would be akin to the Chateau Lake Louise suddenly closing. Apparently it was recently bought by a Japanese company and they don't think it is worth it to upgrade the structure to meet new earthquake standards.

Ok, this is too long! I can see I need to write more often! I will send another missive soon!

Just know we are well, dodging storms and having a great!