North towards Ruapehu

The voyage lasted three hours, we docked at 16.35 and were off the ship by 16.45. The port at Wellington is so slick we were actually back on the road heading out of town two minutes later. We stopped to fill the car up at Levin and Fran wanted to buy a sandwich and eat as we went but that troubled me when we had such a long drive ahead of us. So I refused and said I wanted to sit down for tea, so we set off again and stopped at Foxton, but there wasn't much there. In fact apart from the video hire store it was like a ghost town. We pushed on, Fran being like every other chap I know, didn't want to stop once he had got going. We got to Bulls, where people like to live; the sweet shop was irrisist-a-bull, the clothes shop fashion-a-bull, the deli delect-a-bull and we even followed a lorry over the desert road that was transport-a-bull. There were lots more including social-a-bull on the local club. We stopped for tea. For one reason or another we decided against most of the few eating houses there were and ended up at a kebab house. I had falafel in pitta with hummus and salad, Fran had a lamb kebab and poor mother who doesn't eat salad, ended up with a chicken kebab iskander that came with rice and chickpeas instead of bread, and we had a side of the hottest chips I've ever had with hummus and mint sauce in a pot to dip in. Fran & I had the usually abysmal NZ tea and Mum had apple tea that transported her back to her Turkish holiday. Feeling refreshed we set off again. Mum treated us to tea; $38 very reasonable. Darkness soon started to fall along with a light rain and the road steadily rose until we hit the desert plateau.
The desert plateau is an upland area comprising of volcanic ash worn away to a black sand by the wind and patches of tussocky vegetation anchoring some of it down, which helps to prevent sand storms. All the ash came out of the volcano Ruapehu and it is a truly vast plateau. As we crossed the expanse the light was such that it was possible to see out of the car and make out features like the mountain range in the distance to the left. To the right in the distance the ground seemed to fall away and a sheet of fog or rain was hanging there looking menacing. Fran said, out of the blue, 'It's a shame you can't see the volcano' then out of the mist a shape appeared and I could see bits of the mountain, then all of a sudden above it the fog parted and the sky was red. I nearly threw a fit. I poked Mum and said 'Look!' She turned round and said '"Red sky at night shepherd's delight", it looks lovely' and turned back round. I stared at the back of her head gob-smacked. Didn't she realise we were about to be blown to smithereens? I continued to watch behind me for puffs of smoke until I could no longer see the mountain. It was raining heavier too but I could still see a red light near it in the sky.
I was glad I wasn't driving because the road conditions were poor. The surface was slippery with atrocious bends and the windscreen wipers were making little difference to the visibility, the road works were unlit with no road markings and loose chippings and the journey just seemed to go on and on. It ended when Fran dropped us back off at the unit at 11.30pm. We pulled our bags out of the car thankful to be back, we waved Fran off, unpacked and sat down with a glass of wine and got to bed about 12.15am.