Oh my - it's been nearly 4 weeks since I updated this blog so it is rapidly becoming a distant memory, hence there is likely to be little detail but hopefully enough to remind us where we have been! We had some great photos of the Waikite Valley golf course and hot pools but unfortunately they were accidentally deleted before being fully uploaded.
The 9 hole Waikite Valley golf course rises from directly over the road from the Hot Pools Campground, the driveway to the clubhouse being up a steep rise indicating the probable lie of the course with it's ups, downs and sideways fairways, complete with fenced greens to keep the battle-scarred sheep off. Hard to tell the fairways from the rough of which there was plenty - not often one to lose a ball I lost 3 on the first 4 holes. The worst part though was the copious sheep poo which we spent about half an hour trying to clear from our trundler wheels before putting them back in the bus. It must be so difficult to keep these little country courses going with very limited money and few volunteers - we were lucky to experience it while it is still open though I think it's the first time we haven't played 18 holes on a nine hole course - it was exhausting in the heat and with all the lost balls took us well over 2 hours. Needless to say we were the only ones there until a lone man arrived shortly before we left.
We then booked into the Waikite Valley Hotpools Campground, a busy, rather squashed little site but with the use of the nice relaxing hot pools included in the price. They have a nice bushy walk up the edge of the stream to the hot spring source which gives out the largest volume of hot spring water in the country. We thoroughly enjoyed our relaxing soak in the pools on arrival and slept well, for us, that night. Of course we just had to have another one before we set off in the morning for the Murupara golf course.
Murupara is the course we joined this year whilst on the road with it's much cheaper annual fee than Whakatane. Plus we like to think that every little bit helps a struggling club. I'm probably repeating myself from when we played there last time but, although it has the potential to be beautiful, it hasn't improved in that time with the fairways being rough and the grass long. It's very difficult too for short hitters like me with there being so many 'forested' hazard areas placed before the greens! Yet more balls lost! We were joined after a few holes by a 14 year old lad who has the potential to be a good golfer and it was good to have his company.
Being Saturday it was club day at the course and although there were only 9 players that we could see we ended up behind a group of 5 after the first 7 holes so play became very slow. By the 14th Len and I decided to call it a day especially as neither of us were playing particularly well.
From there we headed on to Whakatane, needing to return to collect mail and paperwork in order to collate end of year accounts particularly for a Trust that Len helps to administer. We stopped alongside Lake Aniwhenua, an awesome overnight free parking spot, just for a coffee in the way through. Our first night in Whakatane, Saturday 30th March, was spent in the McAlister Street carpark and the following 4 nights at Bill & Annette's lovely quiet POP in Aerodrome Rd close to the Whakatane Golf Course.
It was great to see and catch up with friends in Whakatane & Ohope while we were there and also had time for a complementary game of golf plus our flu injections. Unfortunately I am still waiting for my dentist's appointment to fix my 2 very broken teeth. He couldn't fit me in until the 29th April!
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