Turangi to National Park Village

When we got to the visitor´s centre this morning, we were told that the Intercity bus was not going to take our bicycles on board. The 14.30 and the 15.15 buses were full as well. It seemed like we were going to be stuck in Turangi for a while. Another option was to take a shuttle bus from Turangi to National Park Village to take the train from there to Wellington but the shuttle was quite deer. We decided to do this anyway as we didn´t want to stay in Turangi but when the lady of the visitor centre tried to book the train, surprise, surprise, there were no more seats available for today or tomorrow. We were running out of options and to take the shuttle to National Park Village where the weather apparently was turning really bad did not seem like the smartest idea.

As we were hanging around the visitor centre wandering what we should do, a belgian-english couple walked in and they offered to take us to National Park Village in their van. Just when we thought we were going to be stuck for almost a week, again we were lucky to meet fantastic people! We booked the train tickets to leave on tuesday.

We just about got all gear in their van and on the way to National Park Village we stopped for a short walk along a beautiful lake. Ben, Saskia and their daughter Dixie-Lou decided to stay at the same backpackers in National Park Village and we had a perfect dinner at the only Pizzeria of the village. The rest of this little town exists entirely of backpackers. Quite quaint.