27th October – Lake Mahinapua to Goldsborough

Woke up to torrential rain so we made the most of it while we could and went back to sleep to avoid nagging urge for a wee. Traipsing through the rain to the bathroom is not a very nice start to the day and I like to put it off for as long as possible.

Unfortunately the rain had no intention of giving up and continued to pour all day, changing only from driving to drenching to lobbing it down and then back again.

Matt thought that the indicator would be good to go with just a bit of soldering and so we thought we’d ask around for somewhere to do it. Despite the fact that everything other than supermarkets are closed after 5pm in the week and over the weekends, we managed to find an op-shop open until lunchtime. A bloke there offered to help out so Matt disappeared into the back with him while I sat looking at the books. Matt reappeared a short while later. Apparently the guys soldering iron was too huge but they had managed to ‘fix’ it with cardboard. It still didn't work properly but at least it reduced the risk of anyone piling into the back of us.

The rest of the day was a grim drizzle of not so interesting stuff. Being in the car in the rain is just not much fun. Getting wet means hours of trying to dry off and get warm again and constantly changing clothes from wet to just damp ones. It is incredibly frustrating when I don’t like being cooped up and want to be out exploring. I hate the rain at home but it is something else to be in a situation where to stand up means going outside and getting soaked.

Since the most interesting indoor activity without a big cover charge was the sock museum, we caught up on some online stuff and tried to upload the skydiving and cliff jump videos. We ran out of time before they completed so we went to the camp site. It was possible to pan for gold at the site but we since it was still pouring, we got drenched trying to make dinner and then did the only thing that we could think of to do that kept us dry and lifted our spirits – drinking beer, watching/listening to comedy and eating crisps.