NEW ZEALAND - DAY 6

Saturday, March 23
Day 6 - New Zealand

Today began with a "Sausage Sizzle" in the lounge of the lodge.  This was an opportunity for guests to meet one another and listen to sales pitches for tourist attractions.  They served coffee, tea, and milo along with grape juice, orange juice and kiwi juice.  The sausage was a fat sausage.  You picked up a piece of bread, put your sausage on it and put a spread on top of the sausage.  They had ketchup, b-b-q sauce, apricot and pepper spread and corn sauce.  Virgil said he wanted his plain.   I put apricot and pepper spread on one end of mine and corn sauce on the other.  I found it delicious.  I commented to Virgil that the apricot spread was delicious.  He then asked for me to put some on "this burnt thing".  He was a little grouchy about it, although he will not admit it.  He didn't like it very much but I enjoyed every bite of mine.

We went back to the room and took a nap.   I then went walking around the City Center and bought a few souveniers for the kids.  I found another grocery store so I purchased some frozen fish cakes and tomatoes.  All the bake shops have meat pies so I bought Virgil one.  He was on the couch when I returned so I gave him his warm meat pie.  He said it tasted like a hot pocket.

He went back for another nap and I walked down a path that led to a river.  When I arrived back at the room, Virgil was up, so I asked if he would like to do anything.  He said I could do whatever I wanted to, but he is content to watch Animal Planet.

I walked to the Visitor's Center and bought tickets to go the a fish hatchery.  When I came back, Virgil was asleep so I went online to find the church here.  Turangi has a branch with services beginning at 11:30.  I asked Virgil if he wanted to go.  He said, "not really".  I said, that's okay.  I'll go.  I figured I've done things by myself for most of the trip so far, so going to Church by myself is not problem.  He said that he would like to go afterall.

We then walked back to the grocery store.  All the shops were closed.  The grocery store was still open.  We purchased laundry detergent, ketchup ($5.00 for a small bottle), some lettuce, salad dressing, noodles and cup of noodles.

We came back to the room where I attempted to fry the fish cakes.  I am so accustomed to my gas stove, that I obviously cannot good on a ceramic cook top.  I burned three of the of the fish cakes.  I found a book for the oven - I need to include a picture just to show how complicated it is - and put the other three fish cakes in the over.  I then burned those.  I did manage to cook some "chips" (french fried potatoes that weren't fried) without burning them too badly so Virgil had his cup of noodles (Ra-men noodles) a salad and some potatoes.  I had potatoes and salad.  He suggested that perhaps it would be cheaper just to eat out the rest of the time instead of buying food to through away. LOL  I agree - although we still have ham and eggs.

That is the end of Day 6.