I left the Omori campsite around 10 and headed for the river. It was storming again in the morning but cleared up once I got my waders on and headed down. I fished for a bit, and again, nothing. My single day license expired at 1 so shortly after, I drove back to town to return the fishing gear. I said thank you and goodbye to Andrew, got gas, called mom, and left Turangi.
I drove again on the east side of Lake Taupō and instead of going back up towards Rotorua, I went east heading for Lake Waikaremoana. It was another very winding, narrow road and I think the GPS told me it would be 2-3 hours to get to my destination. It doesn't feel like you're going very far when you're constantly taking corners and slowing down, speeding up, and slowing down. At times, the road turned into gravel for a ways and then back to pavement, then back to gravel. I knew I wasn't making good time on this kind of "highway". My goal was to get to the other side of the lake and find a campsite for the night then get up the next morning and do a day hike.
But I kept going and going, following where the GPS said to go, until I lost cell service. At one point, there were no more stretches of pavement, just gravel. I saw a deer scamper into the woods. That was a first. All along the way, there were horses that had escaped their fenced in pins and were just wandering near the road. I came around one corner a little too hot and all the sudden there was a huge white horse right at the edge of the road. I could've had him through my windshield if it wasn't for my cat-like reflexes and good brakes. Then there were three by the road who were sort of frightened by the car and didn't know what to do (since their brains are so small) and as I slowly went up to them, they started running. I was worried if I went right next to them, they'd bolt and possibly bolt right in front of the car. So I honked my horn (as I do to moose to get them out of the roadway) and they scurried off onto a nearby driveway. Silly horses.
In quite a few areas where the road was next to steep cliffs, there were good sized rocks that had tumbled down and stopped on the road. Sometimes they were more on the boulder-sized side. Swerving for horses and rockslides on this little road... I came around a corner at one point, and saw that my path was completely blocked. A huge rockslide had gone across the road and took a number of trees with it. I was not happy that I was going to have to go all the way back after coming all this way. But on the opposite side of the road, the rockslide had stopped and there was a small strip of grass. I kind of saw where other tire tracks had gone around it. I made sure it was okay for my little car to go up on the grass and around the rocks. And I made it around!! Thank goodness, if there hadn't been that spot to detour around and if the slide had been bigger, I would have had to go ALL the way back, probably to Taupō.
I kept driving and noticed it was getting late and I still had no cell service or really an exact destination, or an exact location for that matter. I saw a few campsites along the way, as well as the spot where the Lake Waikaremoana trail let out. I saw a sign for the Mokau campsite and decided to call it a day.
