early day to airport. Taxi didn’t show up, called taxi, dropped us off at airport; sat and waited for plane; didn’t have to go through security, boarded prop plane, flew to brisbane, flew to auckland new zealand, went through customs; had to declare david’s kangaroo jerky; went to pick up our luggage; only mine came out; went to baggage services; they said david’s bag would be coming in on a flight at midnight; they said they’d call us. We went out to the curb to be picked up for our transfer to Maui to pick up our campervan. It was about 4p. We were supposed to be picking up our campervan at 4p. The shuttle comes and picks us up and takes us to Maui. They have us watch a video explaining the campervan. We are getting a 2 seater that has a dinette that changes into a queen sized bed, a mini fridge, a microwave, a small stove top with a cooker, a sink and a shower/toilet combo. Just the perfect size for two people, right?
We had to sit in the waiting area for quite awhile. Then, got the camper ready for us, we piled our stuff in it, and they threw us out. It was almost closing time for them, so they were trying to get us all out as quickly as possible. They even forgot to give us a coin to get out of the parking lot so we had to go back in to get that. After we had everything put away in the campervan, we realized that it was a manual. Great. At least David knows how to drive a manual, but driving on the left, navigating around the roundabouts with a stick?! This is going to be interesting.
Our first stop: grocery store. We were supposed to get a little starter pack which included a roll of tp, dish soap, matches, etc. but they forgot. So, we had to buy all that at the store plus food and cooking supplies. David’s jacket is in his suitcase so we weren’t able to stay outside much since it was freezing and being to rain. We ate dinner in the parking lot in the RV. Nothing fancy for the first night. We decided we might as well find an RV park (or holiday park as they call them here) to stay the night at. We only had rudimentary maps to go off of to find the one RV park semi-close to the airport. We finally found it around 8p and they were already fully booked. Okay, back to the supermarket. We decided to rest for awhile in the parking lot of the supermarket until we got a call from the airline. But, they never called us. David tried to call them and their office had closed at 8p. It would have been nice if they’d told us that. We would have started looking for an RV park earlier in the day. We ended up staying in the parking lot that night, in the pouring rain. At least our duvet is really warm. We can’t turn on our heater because it only runs off electricity when the RV is plugged in. At least the fridge works off the batteries. We weren’t even planning on staying in Auckland overnight. We were planning on heading north as soon as we got the RV. Looks like we’ll be starting our drive tomorrow. Hopefully tomorrow will prove to be more productive.
22 September 2009, Tuesday
We woke early with the rain pounding on the roof of the RV. Luckily, we weren’t kicked out of the parking lot last night. There was a 4 hour limit there to keep out people like us but lucky for us, we were able to stay there all night. We really didn’t have anywhere else to sleep. We called the airport and they confirmed that David’s bag had arrived last night. We drove to the airport and rescued his bag. Okay, now we can head north. We got on the 1 and drove north. We had to drive through Auckland to head north and ran into rush hour traffic. We were trying to avoid that by leaving last night. Ugh. Oh well. Just north of Auckland, we stopped at a service station and had breakfast. They are similar to ones we encountered in England. They are like a giant truck stop in the states where you can get fuel, food, they have bathrooms and a place to park overnight if needed. The drive was very pretty and scenic. We drove east off the motorway and checked out a beach town: Mangawhai Heads.
click here for gallery
We had lunch there and enjoyed the view. Our next stop and place to sleep is Keri Keri. We decided to stop at a Top 10 Holiday Park to see how they were and how expensive they were. They sounded to us like KOA’s in the states which are way over the top and very expensive. Surprisingly, they are reasonably priced and nice. We drove through the town of Keri Keri first (rather quickly since it was pretty small) and decided we really didn’t need to walk around it. Plus, we were pretty tired from the driving today. We settled into our spot, plugged in and enjoyed a delicious campervan made spaghetti dinner. We took much deserved showers and are heading to be early. Tomorrow, we are heading further north to the upper most point on the Northern Island: Cape Reinga. Goodnight!
23 September 2009, Wednesday
We woke up bright and early this morning in Keri Keri to, you guessed it, more rain! Looks like it is the rainy season for New Zealand. Drove up towards the most northern tip of the north island. Stopped to see 90 mile beach. David got us stuck on the beach. We got unstuck once but got stuck again. People were coming to beach and taking pictures of us. Someone went and got us help. 2 4x4 jeeps (both tourists from Australia) tried to pull us out with a metal cable. The cable snapped. 1 jeep left. The other stayed to help us with his bungee cable. He pulled while we gunned our engine. The tide was coming. It was only a few feet from our back bumper. We called for a tow truck: 45 minutes away. Told them we would be in the ocean before that. David told me to start packing up the RV. We were gonna need to bail soon if we weren’t pulled out. Finally, the 4x4 jeep pulled us out safely away from the tide and back on land. We called off the tow truck (the rental company sounded relieved). We continued our trek up north to Cape Reinga. There was construction on part of the way there: they were resealing the roads. We reached the top just before lunch and walked down to see the lighthouse. Here at the cape, the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean converge. The sun came out momentarily and we snapped some pictures. We had lunch back in the RV and started our way back down south. We drove and drove and drove for hours on end and we stopped for dinner just north of Auckland at a petrol station. So as to miss traffic the next morning, we drove south past Auckland to a service station where they had RV parking spots. It’s basically like a truck stop in the states. We are so tired that I doubt that we’ll have trouble falling asleep tonight. Today we drove a total of ___ km. What a day! And to think we almost got swept out to sea this morning. Fun! K, night!
24 September 2009, Thursday
Today we drove from Auckland down to Waitomo Caves. These are the glowworm caves! We decided on a dry 4 hour tour of the caves where we abseil 100m down into a cave, climb around the cave, see the glowworms and then climb a 30m ladder back out of the cave. Since it had been raining nearly all day, the tour wasn’t going to be dry. Our tour guide Rob drove us and another couple (Annie and Brian) out to our starting site. We put on blue jumpers and wore our rain jackets over that. Then, we geared up with our harness and helmet and headed out into the rain. We had a bit of a walk ahead of us to the lookout hole and then to the actual hole we descended down to. We hooked up our cables to the abseil ropes, our guide took pictures of us and then we abseiled down to the bottom. It was awesome! We dropped slowly and reached the bottom pretty quickly. Then we walked along a path through the cave. At certain parts, we had to hook up our harness up to cables to ensure we couldn’t fall to our deaths if we were to slip. We had a snack and another photo shoot before we finally saw the glowworms. We didn’t see as many as I thought we would, but it was neat to see them glow on the ceiling. We had to take a different route from here due to the water level rising in the cave from all of the rain. We were safe tho. We took turns hooking ourselves up to the safety hook and climbing the 30m ladder. That was hard! The ladder was a straight vertical climb. It would have been slightly easier if it was at an incline. Plus, it was covered in water and mud. About halfway up, my hands were freezing and my arms were giving up. And, since I was still getting over a cold, I was coughing all the way up. But, I reached the top! :) I’m not sure how long it took me. The fastest time is around 30 seconds. The couple with us each made it up to the top in about a minute. They were in good shape. David banged his knee on the way up so that slowed him down a bit. Next, we had a series of easier ladders to climb before we climbed out of the cave. It was still raining outside and walked back to where we started from. That was fun! It was hard work climbing out, but it was fun! We changed out of our jumpers and were shuttled back to the info center. We decided to stay at the Top 10 Holiday Park there in Waitomo for the night. Since we were exhausted, we opted for a local restaurant for dinner. It was wonderful! We were both surprised. We had an olive, cheese and bread platter, I got an asparagus salad and David got a steak. Everything was wonderful. I ordered a chai latte to go and that was great as well. We both took showers and did laundry since we got our clothes muddy from the cave. We’re heading to bed now just before midnight. We’re gonna sleep well tonight! Night!
25 September 2009, Friday
Today we are driving into Wellington. We need to take a ferry from there to Picton to reach the south island. We left out of Waitomo around 10 and drove south all day, reaching our campsite, a few minutes north of Wellington, just after dark. We are staying in Lower Hutt at another Top 10 Holiday Park. It was pretty easy to find and the beach of the harbor is literally a 2 minute walk from our site. David took some pictures of the stars.
26 September 2009, Saturday
Explored the city and museum
Had dinner with Dan and his girlfriend at burrito place and went to a Cuban bar
27 September 2009, Sunday
Checked out Weta Cave, tried to get in to see Weta: denied; had lunch with Dan, drove to ferry terminal. Waited in line to board ferry. Boarded ferry…
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment