Sunday 6th at Motutere Bay

Yet another beautiful morning and the view across the lake were stunning. In our bay all was every clam but looking out across the lake it was clear that the waters were anything but calm in the centre of the lake. Taupo, which is NZ's largest lake, is 21 miles wide at its widest and differences in weather conditions across the lake are not unusual.

We drove back to the outskirts of Taupo town and parked the camper van near the sailing centre that we visited yesterday. The plan was to cycle the 3 miles into Taupo along the lakeside, potter around the town and then cycle back. It was a perfect morning for this ride and whilst it was very clear across the lake the wind was increasing and the middle of the lake the waves appeared quite high.

Mount Tongariro off the southern end of the lake still has snow on its summit, certainly not as much as last time we were here but still a substantial amount.

There was a classic car display on the green and amongst many others, there was an original mini similar to Ray's first car.

It was an easy ride but occasionally the wind blew in the wrong direction and the LLW had to deal with a very strong head wind. Back at the camper van we loaded the bikes onto the rack and headed down to the coffee shop where the LLW astounded everyone by saying that today she did not want a cake. The waitress took some time to get over this shock with the end result that our coffees only arrived after about 10 mins.

Back to the camp site and another swim in the wonderfully clear lake but only after evading two black swans who seemed to have had previous bad experiences of city lawyers and attempted to chase the LLW for a while.