(written on April 14th from notes taken previously)
I was up early this morning, leaving Kerosene Creek and heading to Hot ‘N Cold, where I enjoyed a nice early-morning soak in the hot river before deciding to head back to Taupo.
Now why would I head back to Taupo? Weeeeell… 🙃 One of the things that I’ve noticed in sitting in hot river is that when I lean forward while sitting down, my darn belly is in the way. 😆
I’ve never in my life had that happen! 😶 What does that have to do with Taupo? Well… I didn’t want to head north yet because of humidity concerns and painting the repair on the van, so the nearest place where I could weigh myself was in Taupo. 🙃
So I drove back, stopping at the Aratiatia Rapids parking lot I think accidentally? (I think I inadvertently tapped the wrong destination when setting my navigation).
I took advantage of the available bathroom, I think, and then headed on over to Mitre 10.
After a lovely older lady directed me to where the bathroom scales were, I measured myself.
186ish.
😶
That’s it?
I’ve been as big as 203 back in the earlier mechanic years. Heavens, 186 seems like barely a blip–except it’s apparently a very soft 186. 😆
I’m definitely quite self-conscious about it with my shirt off. 😅
Anyway, gonna try and lose some weight, hopefully a few pounds or so before I go home. 🤞
From Mitre 10, I headed over to a city park in the middle of town where supposedly I could fill up my water bottles, and gratefully, CamperMate was correct. 🙏
After a quick stop at Woolworth’s to dispose of my soft-plastic recyclables, I headed to my little riverside perch at Hipapatua Reserve, where I spent a good while cleaning out and organizing my van.
I even redid my bed design, and wow! Why didn’t I do that 6 months ago. 😆
It’s so much more comfortable this way. 🙃
Oh well. I’ll get to enjoy it for my last 10 daysish here.
Oof. 10 days. Feels like nothing.
After hanging out there at my little riverside perch, I wandered over to the bathroom and dishwashing area, where I spent the next… gosh, probably hours cleaning all the dust off every item in the “kitchen” section of my van.
Whatever periodically causes dirt to cloud the air inside my van when driving along dirt roads left quite the dusty film on everything, so I got everything out of the back, brought it over to the little dishwashing sink, and went to work.
Looks the heck of a lot better now. 🙃
I also spent a good little while washing my van, filling up my empty soda bottles with water again and again, and washing each of the body panels bit by bit, rinsing as I went.
In the process of cleaning everything, I noticed this rather large butterfly that seemed to have something wrong with it. 😞 I don’t know if it was just old and dying, or if it was dazed and confused. It couldn’t fly, only flutter awkwardly to the ground.
It could hang on to me without any problems, but it didn’t want to let go of me when I tried to put it on a plant. And when I finally got it onto a plant, it couldn’t stay vertical. 😞
Hope it’ll be ok. 🤍
I spent my sunset at Rangatira Park Lookout, enjoying the scenery.
I could have stayed there another night at the camping area by the river, but I decided to head back to Hot ‘N Cold.
I think I was the only one there when I got there, but it wasn’t long before another man came by with his JBL boombox (which reminded me of Chase and the JBL boombox he had bought last time we were here.
Hot river. Music in the dark.
Fun times. 😊
After a while, a gentleman from Auckland who was nearby for work (he works on cell phone towers, among other things) came by, and we chatted a fair bit.
A family from Rotorua also came by, and we all chatted for a little while. Eventually, I bid everyone farewell and headed over to Kerosene Creek for the night–again. 🙃
Seems like a pretty significant waste of gas, driving from Kerosene Creek all the way to Taupo and back in the same day, but oh well. It’s what I did. 😅
Oh, did I mention that I finally got the Golden Kiwi posted for sale?
Yurp.
Finally. 😅
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 