Ruahine Forest Park and an Unexpected Surprise

Sarah and I set off Saturday morning with the Honda Jazz loaded up for a camping weekend. We car convoyed with Stacey and Terrance ( and Elliot, their 5 year old) to meet Sarah B., Paul and her folks for lunch in Palmerston North. Terrance is an American who has been doing an ER locum in Hawera over the past 6 months and will be returning home next week.

We had a long lunch at the Church Yard Cafe close to the Square in Palmy. Here is the unexpected part, as we were leaving Paul placed something in my hand which I initially thought was a candy. In fact it was a greenstone necklace from the South Island. Its' design is attributed to leaders ( chiefs). He told me that no one could touch it without my permission, except Sarah. What a spectacular gift. A thousand thank you's Paul.

We headed out from Palmerston North to the Totara Reserve where we had some walks picked out.
As it was getting late we decided to set up our campsite first as it looked as if the Met service was going to be correct and we were in for some rain ( a warm rain I might add for you folks in the minus Celsius side of the thermometer.)

The campsite was a DOC ( Dept of Conservation) and Basic, no drinking water, no picnic table. The only facility was the dreaded 'longdrop', and one has to bring their own toilet paper at that. Fortunately we knew about that possibility in advance, however we did have a back up, 'The Interlake Spectator'. This being our local Manitoban newspaper. Who said the Spectator is good for nothing?
What the campground lacked in facility was more than compensated by its' location beside the Pohungina River. It had a tremendous current and hard 'S' turns and sheer rock cliffs.

We decided to check out the trail head we were going to hike the next day.
Yikes!
It was a 22 km hike into the A- frame hut. It was terrifying just driving  to the park boundary. See the Jazz at the top of a hill. It suddenly got very, very windy ( gale force) and sideways rain up there. We turned the car around and carefully beat a hasty retreat for the campsite.

We had a wonderful meal and sat out under our tarp in front of a campfire and then read the paper.
When we were both in our sleeping bags we each shared an ear piece from the I-Pod and listened to a pod cast of Laugh Out Loud.
The wind stayed strong and it rained all night.
At 7 am we broke camp and went looking for a warm breakfast. We usually make our own meals but we were chilled and damp.

 We drove by The Chelty but it was still so early so we pushed on to Fielding and had a complete breakfast, including delicious "flat whites " for under 10 bucks NZ.

                                   The Waimarie

We then stopped in to the Whanganui RiverBoat Museum. I have always wanted to see the Centre but it  has never been open when we were driving by. Sarah had to drag me out of there. The vessel Waimarie was salvaged from the river bank and rebuilt by volunteers over a 19 year period and relaunched in 2006.

                                      The Aviary in Virginia Park

 On our way out of Whanganui, we stopped at Virginia Lake and took in the "Winter Garden" and the Aviary.

We both had hot showers at home and a cup of tea. I think we will wait for the rain to stop before we think about emptying the car.

Cary