VLI (Port Vila, Vanuatu), to AKL (Auckland, New Zealand).
The VIP Club Lounge at VLI is nothing to write home about, but it does have air-con unlike the departure lounge, so that’s nice.
Another one of these
The seats in the business class cabin are nothing special, but I do have it all to myself, so that’s nice.
And the breakfast is nice.
Another hire car, this time a very nice LandCruiser, costing almost nothing thanks to Hertz points.
Time to learn all the switches and electronics of yet another unfamiliar car.
Time to get used to driving on the left again. In the past month I’ve been driving in: England, on the left. Germany, right. Taiwan, right. Fiji, left. Vanuatu, right. New Zealand, left. Wherever you are, just remember that whichever side of the car you’re sitting on while driving, you should be near the middle of the road, not the verge or the kerb. If you’re near the verge and you’ve got the steering wheel, you’ve fucked up.
Time to get back into road-tripping mode with a 3 hour drive to Rotorua, through the endless North Island farmland.
It’s a pleasantly scenic drive, sadly with no good opportunities for photos. As is so often the case, the best bits have nowhere you can safely stop. Little traffic though, and the LandCruiser is superb.
Due to a planning failure, the geological sites I’d planned to visit were closed by the time I got there, so I have to choose between doing them tomorrow or sticking with the originally planned mountain biking.
There’s a hot spring and geyser right outside my hotel room, so that’s nice. Except that there’s a sulphurous smell everywhere that makes you think there’s been a sewage problem…
In any case, I have my magnificent landcruising machine and the open road. When I grow up, I want a LandCruiser.
Yes, outside my hotel room there’s an ancient geyser smoking away and occasionally blowing off. Just like any hotel room in Sheffield.