The previous evening there had been surfers in front of the house and this morning they were back again.

We left Leigh and drove to Napier, stopping off at Taupo. On the way we passed another post box, this time a ‘bee’ and passed the ‘Pukeko’ again.

At Taupo shortly before sunset.

There were lots of walkers taking part in the Oxfam Trailwalker event, walking (or running) 100km over 36hrs in teams of at least 4 people.

Noel then had a tiring drive from Taupo to Napier as it was dark and then wet and then we were in cloud as the cloud got lower.

Approaching Napier we could see the lights of the town reflected on the cloud and also the lights of McLean Park reflected on the cloud, where there was a big rugby match being played. Hurricanes vs Blues. Apparently the right team won! We drove to Max’s and watched the remainder of the game and chatted about what we’d been up to in our time away.