NZ Day 17 - Oceania Middle & Rotorua

Jon and I don’t normally lose keys very often, but we managed to lose the hire car keys just as we needed to leave Auckland for the orienteering event.  An exhaustive search of every packed bag and crook and crevice in our bedroom finally revealed them hidden in the folds of some bedding. By then we were 15 minutes past our planned leaving time which meant Jon's start time was in jeopardy.  The drive to the event was about 80 minutes however the organisers had a parking nightmare on their hands due to the massive amounts of rain that had rendered the parking paddock un-usable by non-4wd vehicles. By the time we arrived there was a 40 minute queue as we were directed to park over a kilometre away from the assembly area, which was pretty inconvenient but it could have been worse as we were at least close to the start area.  Lots of people were late to their starts as a result of the queueing.  By some miracle we did all end making it to our starts on time.  Phew. The racing was fun around the limestone cliffs and depressions and we all did pretty well in the standings.  We still had a 3 hour drive on to Rotorua so we left as soon as we could and arrived at lovely Blue Lake around 5pm.  Rotorua itself seemed to stink a lot more than last time we were here - it must be affected by wind or rain or something. We’re stink free out here by Blue Lae though!  We’ve got a rest day tomorrow so lots on non-resting planned for it of course.