Woohoo! After roughly 500 miles of driving we arrived in Rotorua in the evening. Our initial plan was foolproof - we'd hit Rotorua in the evening, find a car park like we did in Paihia and camp out for the night and save some money. For those of you who don't know, the camper van has two batteries - one for the automotive part of the camper (like a car) and one for the fridge, indoor lights, water pump etc. This battery only lasts for about 2 or 3 days (or so we were told) so it needs to be recharged as a camper van site - which costs money - roughly 30 - 40 dollars a night. These sites have running water, showers, kitchens etc so even though our battery had run out while we were in Paihia, we thought there'd be no point in booking into a campsite in Rotorua in the evening as we wouldn't get the full benefit of the facilities unless we got there early. So, the plan was to find free parking. We stopped into the local i-Site which is the tourist information office in Rotorua and I asked the young girl behind the counter if there was anywhere we could park up for the night. She told me that it was illegal to park within the city overnight and that we'd have to find somewhere outside the city. Hmmm. "Well, ok, can you tell me where we can go outside the city then?" I asked hopefully. "No." she said. I then noticed a certain slackness of jaw on this young girl that I hadn't noticed before. "No?" I asked. "No." she said flatly again. I'm nearly sure I noticed a perceptible blob of drool seeping from the corner of her mouth as the blank look in her eyes got more and more unfocused. Right - so, you've been very informative Ms. Information Office worker. Thanks.
We were in a dilly of a pickle at this time as it was starting to get dark and we thought we might have to bite the bullet and pay for a camp site (can you imagine!). We had heard that the Department of Conservation in New Zealand had camping sites littered around New Zealand and we were under the assumption that these would be very basic and would cost money but would at least be cheaper than a powered campsite so we went to an internet cafe and got a list of them in the area (not sure why the i-Site didn't have this info???). The nearest one was around 40 kilometres away and the light was fading so we hightailed it out of there and went in search. We weren't expecting much. This place was on Brett Road outside of Rotorua - no offence to Brett but the name doesn't inspire visions of lake-side beauty!! We thought we would be in a car park in the middle of a forest with maybe a tap for water. After driving down back roads for about half an hour with the light fading extremely fast we pull in to the D.O.C site. For 6 dollars a night, this is what you wake up to:
New Zealand rocks!
No comments:
Post a Comment