Digging out the car and driving to Lake Taupo

Black water rafting was a good time. I saw an eel. And lots of glow worms. And my rental wet suit smelled like somebody else's BO.



On our way out we got a tip on a good beach to camp at. It was a little out of our way but well worth it. Unfortunately we tried to drive our little car out on the beach (there were tire marks and a little bit of a path) and got the car stuck in the sand. The next morning we spent hours digging it out and managed to move it about a meter (that's right... I think in metric now) before getting it stuck again. With only 1 car driving by every hour, we were ready to give up. There are worse places to be stuck than a beautiful beach I guess.



Then a van full of kiwis drove up. We ended up digging it out again, jacking the car up (it was bottomed out) and ramming a big piece of wood under the tire. I got behind the wheel of a kiwi car for my first time and got us out of there. All said and done we were out by noon. Not so bad I guess.



So we got lunch and drove down to the rainbow trout capital of the world: Turangi. We stopped on the way to take some pictures and I got a nice shot of some kiwi graffiti.



When we got to town we were given another tip on where to camp right on the lake. We didn't drive out car out on the sand this time and managed to have a good time nonetheless. We are going to go for a hike today and then on to Wellington. We will be catching a ferry to the south island on Sunday morning. Until then...