Day 43 - Heading North, Desert Road, Hamilton, Auckland and onto to Leigh

Monday 13th Feb
Time to move again. We had a long,long drive ahead of us going from Fielding up past Auckland to Leigh in Northland. We were just going to keep going swapping drivers every hour and a half to 2 hours. We got up when everyone else did at 0700, had breakfast then packed and loaded the cases. By 0800 we were waving goodbye and heading into Feilding to fill up the tank before heading North.
We had discussed our route last night, were heading up the the right hand side of lake Taupo and Teresa had told us there was a Gull card-only petrol site after the town of Taupo to fill up again.
I was driving the first leg and we were aiming to swap every hour and a half.

By 0930 we could see Mount Ruapehu, we were also close to the National army museum, we knew from passing through on the way down there was a cafe and loos so we decided to pull in. Just from the cafe and the bit of the lobby we saw it looks like a great place to visit, but we didn't have time today.

With my coffee cup loaded with a large flat white we set off again with Karen driving the desert road this time.

Not that it looked much like a desert with all the recent rain.
Lake Taupo had been a bit dull looking on the way down, but today it looked great.

Around Taupo we saw the signs for the prawn park and the geothermal power plant pipes, then we passed a large Z petrol station, this was our clue to start looking for the Gull site.

Traffic lights at road works gave us a chance to swap drivers again as Karen had been driving for a while. Not long after we cleared the road works we came across another set of cones and our Gull site, we missed turning off so we quickly doubled back. Karen grabbed a big bag of crisps from the shop on the filling site and got me a very cold diet coke, while I filled the car up.
I hadn't spotted anywhere to stop for lunch before Hamilton, so we pressed on.

At Hamilton we briefly pulled off SH1 to visit a New World to grab some lunch. Refueled with pies and scones Karen set off toward Auckland.
Just before we got into Auckland Karen was struggling to respond to questions so we pulled off at exit 444 (I think) and swapped drivers.
Traffic jams through Auckland as we crossed the harbour bridge. I had to wake Karen up we went over the harbour bridge.

I drove the rest of the way to Leigh.
Arriving at the BnB we discovered the nearest place to eat looked closed. We grabbed some breakfast essentials from the local shop and walked up to the Sawmill cafe which our host had told us about. The menu looked good, so we headed back to the BnB to drop off our shopping before eating. We'd found that our accommodation had refused us for Paihia so we needed to start looking again.
We found a few places but we thought we should eat first so we headed out to the Sawmill cafe.
The meal was great, they also had a micro brewery, so the beer was awesome too. Dessert was chocolate brownie and ice cream, mine came as a sundae. It was a gut buster meal. The rain started down but fortunately we picked a table with a brolly and it was still warm. The waitress was from the UK and the guy waiting was from Skipton!

Karen drove us back to the BnB and when we got back she found us our accommodation for Paihia. The weather forecast wasn't looking good for the morning.