A night at the eggy baths

Sod it, we deserved a treat after all the shonky places weve been staying in courtesy of the wonderful I-site peeps. Great service, just a bit arbitrary: you roll into town, pop into the i-site office, tell the girlie what sort of thing you're after and she finds you a place, negotiates a good rate for you and takes your payment upfront. Scary if youre used to planning ahead like me but oddly reassuring after just a couple of visits. This is how we ended up in a complete skip of a caravan, mind. It's convenient, not foolproof.

Once we'd decided to take to the hills it was easy to find a place, cos there's only one. Well, nigh on. The hills are peppered with thermal springs, and once you've bypassed the touristy places there's only the posh resorts left. That's our other nemesis, the Rough Guide to NZ, which seems to be a fair bit wide of the mark most of the time and completely wrong the rest. Maruia Springs Resort is described as both "rustic" and "reasonable", and it's neither. It's a very posh Japanese-style thermal pool complex and not for the faint of wallet. The one time we didn't use the I-site... lets just say haggling was futile.

Still, you do get a right good time of it. There are segregated pools for skinnydipping, complimentary kimonos and sandals for flouncing to the pools in, no TV, no phones, no mobile reception, and miles away from anywhwre so no pizza delivery even if there was. A choice of a la carte menu or starvation seemed a bit rich, but the food was amazing.

Highlight of the stay was probably Oscar trying to eat his chips with chopsticks, or maybe Elly failing to understand what the soup of the day was when she asked the Japanese waitress. Nik went over to her rescue and came back in fits: it was cauliflower. Bless.

Back to Wellington tomorrow, quite refreshed and mildly enlightened. I thought these places were all about the smell of rotten eggs and the stealthy emptying of pockets, but it seems that's only half of the story. The rest of it is fun..