19 degrees, rain, rain and more rain
Packed up and left the Novotel by 10.30 heading towards Paihia on the Bay of Islands for 4 days for Christmas. Rain was lashing down.
At 10.40 John noticed a ‘check engine’ light on the dashboard which was a bit worrying as were were off on a 5 hour journey. So we found the Avis rentacar office in Hamilton and limped there, fortunately just 2 minutes away. They swapped the car quite readily and we now have a Toyota Corolla instead of our very dirty Holden Cruz which was very much in need of a clean, so every cloud . . . ! Unfortunately the new car doesn’t have satnav and we miss our quirky satnav voice in a kiwi accent mispronouncing street names and telling us to ‘drive on TOSH 1’ instead of ‘drive on to SH (state highway) 1’! Kept us amused for hours.
The long drive up to Paihia took just over 7 hours in the end, what with the car delay and the driving rain so got to Sea Spray apartments by 6 pm. Thankfully the supermarket was open till 9 so managed to get our last minute fresh food for Christmas dinner before a light meal and bed.
It was still raining!