21 till 23-10-2008

Travel blog about our trip to New Zealand in October/November 2008
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Pieter
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21 till 23-10-2008

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23 October 2008 - Waipapakauri Beach, New-Zealand

21-10


Our last post was about the loitering before our departure for Auckland. The pick-up was right on time and brought us at Changi Airport, terminal 3.

This is a whole new terminal and when you enter, your mouth falls open until it touches your shoes. It’s magnificent and huge. Schiphol looks small compared to this. They’d put thoughts on everything here, even free internet is available, wired and wireless throughout the terminal.
Of course, smoking is prohibited here, but as an exception to the rule, they provided beautiful smoke areas, inside the terminal and even outside. We’ve been sitting outside in a lovely garden, CO2 neutral so to speak :knip2:

After a while, watching people, we wanted something to eat, so we went to the Burger King. The que was enormous and this made us decide to look somewhere else. I already spotted something, but not all tastes are the same.

A small place with authentic Singapore dishes was the place. Here we had some wonderful food, the Chinese restaurant back home will have to wait before I ever getting food from them, they can’t compete with this food.

Beef stew with Dutch potatoes for Greetje and Sweet and Sour Pork for me. Delicious, it was very tasty and we ate almost everything.

After we’ve been checked we left for New Zealand right on time, flying towards the day, another short night.


22-10

At Auckland Airport we were greeted by a lovely little dog, sniffing all the luggage for fruits and other stuff. In New Zealand they rightfully fear the introduction of spores and seeds from plants not native to the islands. Everything went very smoothly and soon we stood outside the terminal.
It was a lovely day, 19 degrees with friendly clouds, pierced by the sun.

We had to wait for a while, but we didn’t mind in this weather. It also meant we could top up our nicotine levels. A friendly guy picked us up and brought us to the campervan hire, where everything was taken care of for us. We rented also a mobile phone for the princely sum of 30 NZ dollar with a 20 NZ dollar prepaid card.
Extra towels and stuff were no problem and about half past 2 we went on our way with the campervan.

The first trip isn’t very far, at least according our plan, but somewhere we took a wrong turn. After a while we found our way again, but this meant we drove a little more than a 100 kilometres.

We had to get back to Warkworth for some foodstuff, but that didn’t take long.
Back on the campsite we were to tired to make ourselves something to eat, and after e few drinks the lights went out.
The campsite is called Sheepworld and is on a working sheepfarm, including cats and dogs. Even a donkey was wondering about and no, it wasn’t me :-P

The bed had to be made and some things had to be stored away, but since we are on holiday, we bent the rules a little bit :knip1:

At 10 PM the lights really went out, we were completely worn and know nothing more from the night that is was cold :lach1: so in the middle of the night we grabbed the duvet to cover us up, just al blanket wasn’t enough.



23-10

At half past 5 a Greetje was wide awake and it won’t take long before I’m awake also, if I like it or not :knip2: :lach2:. After the necessary morning rituals we took a shower in our private on suite: plenty of hot water, our own toilet and sink, everything squeaky clean and in perfect order.
At 9 o’clock we thanked our host and said goodbye, and after some good advice we decided to change our planned route. Where we wanted to go would be very busy because of a sailing regatta on the east coast.

This is the first day we really are on our trip through New Zealand and as said, we changed our plans. After a couple of short stops in order to get the nicotine levels up, the first real stop was in Whangarei, where we bought a good roadmap and had some lunch. We also bought some postcards for the home front.
The coffee is black and strong, making things easy for some output in the lower regions.
Despite being on a main road, State Highway 1 North, everything is well shaken, I think they never heard of real asphalt here. The roads here are made with crushed rocks with some sand and cement, after which they spray it with bitumen and sprinkle it with grit. Repairs are made in the same way, making the holes a little less deep. I could have sworn that the Irish have been building the roads.

The next stop was at Pahia, where we took some pictures of the beautiful bay. We also did some shopping, the only thing we haven’t found yet is a flashlight. A flashlight might come in very handy when visiting the toilet in the middle of the night. We have a toilet in our campervan, but we want to keep this for emergencies.

Also at Kaeo we stopped, it is in a beautiful valley, although the sun helped it along the way. Of course we took some pictures and even the video camera saw the light of day.

The road leads us along the South Pacific and with some last minute steering we ended up at a parking on Cable Bay for a magnificent view. Here we enjoyed some ice-cream (it’s our holiday) and the beautiful scenery, of which we took pictures and film.
Because it is close to our next campsite we took our time here, taking in the breath taking views and the wonderful weather. It’s impossible to film or photograph all the beauty here.

Our last stop before reaching the campsite became a scavenging for food. A factory where they are making all kinds of beautiful thing from ancient trees (Kauri) has also a restaurant, but the kitchen was already closed. Some people seem to don’t want to make a living and to say it is a thriving community is a bit much. It was just past 4:30 when we arrived.
Back to the village where the fish and chip shop was the only option, but here is making a living not a priority. Our order for a fish & chips and a hotdog & chips brought us a lot of paper with a sausage on a stick and lots of chips.
After our diner we soon found our stay for the night and got settled in our mobile home.

After some drinks and writing this story we went to the internet café with our USB sticker :lach2:, bought some internet time to get our story out. Tomorrow we’ll be back with more stories and hope to read your reactions, which are fun for us to read. (P)


Oké, hello! I’m going to add some thoughts to the story. Let me get back in my memory… which is a bit mushy, jetlag takes its toll, not mentioning the tax free vodka… However, our flight went very well, despite a whining kid in the row next to us. Unbelievable!! Mom and Dad thought everything was oke for the kid to do, but our hands were itching to do something about it. Pieter did a powernap on board the plane, but I didn’t sleep at all. I found it more than excellent about myself to stay awake for this long period, no wonder the lights went out early last night!
Sheepworld was awkward, but fun and noisy because of the highway nearby. The hot shower was a treat this morning.

As said: schedule adapted after good advice from the owner of Sheepworld. Big sail regatta (labour day) weekend at the east coast. The Kiwis have a long weekend off, Friday through Monday. In this weekend the whole of Auckland goes to the Bay of Islands, and we don’t want to get stuck in there.

Oh Lord, Pietje drops my tax free vodka over the floor :-( . He owns me one :-D . Oke, next. We were back on the road nice and early this morning and drove a beautiful route (see above from Pieter and the photo’s). While here, at Waipapakauri Beach … :-D . This is the starting point of 90-mile Beach, which leads to Cape Reinga. That’s the plan for tomorrow with the same road back (there are no other roads) and I think we won’t be getting much further than where we are now. Too bad we won’t visit Coromandel because of the labour day weekend. We don’t need all those people. We hope to keep you posted about what’s coming, but you never know on the campsites. Not all of them are equipped with a good internet connection. No news means good news.

Dear all: we are now going to upload this story with the help of a USB-stick(er) :-D and hope we let you all know how we are doing. See you soon!! (M) PS: Forgive our typo’s, after our long voyage shit happens!!

PS2: We’ve read all mail and try to make a call this week, so stay up late, or get up early :-D.
Also, the locations on the map don’t match, but with the help of Google Maps you’ll be able to follow our travels, just practise your skills ;-) :-D Adjusting the map doesn’t work at this time, no time and to slow.
Don't put your mouth into motion, before your brain is in gear.
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