A flat tire and other obstacles
It's been three days since Daniel, my mom, my brother and I had set off to a little adventure trip around the North Island. Apart from some minor misunderstandings and arguments things went alright - until yesterday. Dan's car is definitely not made for four people plus heaps of luggage. Every time we encountered a little bump in the road in sounded like the car was scraping along the pavement. Not a very good sound.
And then it happened - somewhere between Waitomo Caves and Taupo there was a big BANG - and one of our tires said goodbye forever. Luckily we had a spare one in the back and it didn't take too long for Dan to fix it. We made it into Taupo alright but since we had a huge trip planned for today - driving towards Tongariro National Park and then over to Napier - with unsealed roads as well there was no way we would do that without a new spare tire.
Unfortunately today is Sunday. And not only is nothing open. One of the tire places had an after-hours-phone-number - which we called - just to be informed that they don't operate on Sundays. GREAT!!! So what now? Well... the atmosphere wasn't the best for a while as different opinions and demands clashed.
In the end we decided to stay in Taupo one more night. The YHA luckily had space for us again despite a Warriors Game in town tonight. We'll get the tire problem sorted out tomorrow and then just go straight to Rotorua. There's more to see and do there anyway than in Napier.
I was also quite lucky to get a refund from Wotif.com where we had booked our accomodation. Normally they don't accept cancellations within 48hours or less. But I had spoken to someone at our Motel in Napier this morning and explained the situation to them. They were happy to give us a refund but said we'd have to talk to Wotif. To make it short - the Wotif-guy ended up calling the Motel in Napier, they confirmed that the cancellation is ok and now we get our money back *woohoo*
Everything else about our trip including some really cool pictures I'll share with you later... We're going to the pools today to relax a bit and "cool down"...
And then it happened - somewhere between Waitomo Caves and Taupo there was a big BANG - and one of our tires said goodbye forever. Luckily we had a spare one in the back and it didn't take too long for Dan to fix it. We made it into Taupo alright but since we had a huge trip planned for today - driving towards Tongariro National Park and then over to Napier - with unsealed roads as well there was no way we would do that without a new spare tire.
Unfortunately today is Sunday. And not only is nothing open. One of the tire places had an after-hours-phone-number - which we called - just to be informed that they don't operate on Sundays. GREAT!!! So what now? Well... the atmosphere wasn't the best for a while as different opinions and demands clashed.
In the end we decided to stay in Taupo one more night. The YHA luckily had space for us again despite a Warriors Game in town tonight. We'll get the tire problem sorted out tomorrow and then just go straight to Rotorua. There's more to see and do there anyway than in Napier.
I was also quite lucky to get a refund from Wotif.com where we had booked our accomodation. Normally they don't accept cancellations within 48hours or less. But I had spoken to someone at our Motel in Napier this morning and explained the situation to them. They were happy to give us a refund but said we'd have to talk to Wotif. To make it short - the Wotif-guy ended up calling the Motel in Napier, they confirmed that the cancellation is ok and now we get our money back *woohoo*
Everything else about our trip including some really cool pictures I'll share with you later... We're going to the pools today to relax a bit and "cool down"...
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