Whanganui

One of the delights of our road trip (to me anyhow !) was the town of Whanganui. It is about an 8 hour drive south from our home. We stayed a night in New Plymouth before hitting Whanganui.

This was only the second time I had ever been here - the first when I was at Library School and basically ran into Whanganui to a cemetery to look for Greg Carroll's grave - he was a U2 roadie who was sadly killed in a motorbike accident if my memory is correct. (massively big U2 fan waaaaay back!)

Stephen had never been here, so off we went. A nice central motel saw us walking round the town.

First thoughts on a Monday night? Deserted and tumble weeds blowing down the main road... Kinda reminded me of "Back to the Future". We struggled to find somewhere to eat that night and the place we chose had no idea what a margareta (spelling?) pizza was.... It was average.

Beautiful town though - I did think the old Moutua Gardens needed a good tidy up but I guess being Christmas / New Year no- one was going to mow the lawns which were weeks overdue.

Maybe I am being a bit harsh... Really did love the small town feel and the old buildings everywhere made me melt at my toes. And real estate - oh my. Huge old gorgeous houses for $160K plusPocket money ;). (said like a true Aucklander! :) ) 

Very friendly townsfolk , sweet little basic wool shop but enough for me. Loved it! Couldn't live there as too "isolated"  for me and too far to drive to get elsewhere (like on a plane.), but I really did like the feel of the town and thought it would be a sweet little place to live in when older perhaps.

We did the paddle steamer down the river which was fab and also went in NZ's only underground lift which was very cool. Pics coming another day - my i-pad now has no more room to up load photos onto it, so I need to figure out how to get all pics off it onto a hard drive....