Taupo to Gisborne

We were up at a reasonable hour knowing that we had a long drive ahead of us. There had been some talk of going out for breakfast but this was vetoed by the back bench committee and we finished our remaining pack of bacon with the last six slices of bread we had and some tomatoes. It turned out to be a very good breakfast.
The night had been somewhat spoilt by some noisy revellers who had kicked off at about two thirty am. However we were bright eyed and bushy tailed and after a little drive along the lakeside stopped to get some fresh bread for lunch and then headed off on the road home.
The drive out of Taupo was fine and we headed up towards Rotorua before turning onto the road to Murupara. This was a fairly boring drive along a flat plain through forests and onto the town of Murupara itself. We stopped there to visit the toilet and that may well have been a mistake. The town itself appeared to very depressed and the back seat committee refused to get out of the car at the toilets we found. I said if any one approached with a car jack they were to be repelled. However, with Rosemarie in the back of the car it would take a brave soul to try and steal the wheels.
The town had one of those odd feelings about it and Sally thought it was very much a drug town. Anyway off we set again with me at the wheel. Twenty kilometres further on the hard road surface ran out and we were driving on a dirt track.
Bear in mind now that this was one of new Zealand's major highways the equivalent of an A road in Britain. The road was narrow and wound its way up a fairly steep mountain, a safe speed to me seemd to be about 40 kmph and Andy agreed. We came across road works, where the road narrowed and at one point a "Give Way " sign which had been out up just before a blind bend to the right. Apparently I held oth hands up and exclaimed "Give  Way, Give way to what? The back seat committee thought this was highly funny but Areed that they couldn't see a thing.
We averaged about thirty five kilometres an hour for the next two hours but eventually arrived at Lake Waikaremoana where were greeted with some beautiful views of the lake.
Luncheon was taken at a motor camp site by the lake in a rather cold wind before we headed off towards Gisborne.
The expedition photographer and naturalist was delighted with her day's work. We had seen horses, a small roe deer, wild goats, four hawks sat in the road, and some sheep. In addition we saw a feral cat a donkey and some llamas. The hawks were very camera shy and all of them flew away before we had a good chance to get a quality photograph of them.
We arrived back in Gisborne at about five thirty and had fish and chips for supper before all of us fell into our beds at a very early hour.
The regal tour part two was over, but all of us had had a great time.