Unlike the other times I’ve caught a coach recently, this one isn’t me getting on at the start and off at the end of the trip, so I’m taking the Wellington to Tauranga coach, but getting off in Rotorua. I’m only mentioning this because it meant that I had to double check which coach I boarded, because Wellington is the start of a few routes.
I know I’ve taken the night bus from Hamilton to Wellington, and I’m pretty sure I took the Wellington to Auckland night bus once.
Didn’t end up taking a double decker, which is maybe a little bit of a shame, but that one was going to Napier.
Dozed for the first hour or so, because it was a pretty early start. We ended up with 45 minutes to kill in Palmerston North, because traffic was light, people turned up early at various stops, and the driver was able to skip Levin entirely. Of course, it was a public holiday, so bugger-all was open, but I did get a coffee from an unsurprisingly busy because it was the only one open café.
Lunch stop was another tiny little unexpectedly nice place; Flat Hills Café & Tourist Park, somewhere south of Mangaweka. Looks like they have chalets, similar to the ones in Ettrick, on the way to Queenstown. Also a farm of sorts, with a pig, an alpaca (who was lurking in the trees), and a rooster.
They’re clearly set up to deal with coaches, based on the parking lot size & the size of the cafe seating area, with an inside and a covered outside and an open outside. And a sign above the urinal telling you how to preorder your coffee online to save time.
Somewhere out there are some big impressive mountains, bet the cellphone camera isn’t really up to the task.
Lake Taupō.
I had the plan, once I got to my hotel, of getting some dinner & organising some travel stuff, but the one beer I had as part of the meal hit me like a hammer, and it didn’t seem to be a very good idea to be doing things involving understanding the interactions of time, date, and money. So I didn’t.