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Published: January 19th 2006
Turkish Restaurant
Pat's first day in Auckland. He has a Carney Classic story of missing his plane from Toronto and catching another later the same day- Luck of the Irish!!!After two months apart, Pat arrived at Auckland at 7:45 in the morning on Jan 10th.
We bought a car the next day, a Subaru station wagon from a British couple returning home after a year of working and travelling here. The cars are in very good condition here compared to cars of similar vintage back home. The mileage tends to be less as you have not nearly as far to drive to reach the ocean in any direction, and people tend not to commute great distances for work. There are lots of inexpensive Japanese cars, brought into the country as used vehicles with very low mileage. Ours has more than 150 K but runs like a top. It
is a 4-wheel drive which only means we paid more for the mechanic's assessment before purchasing the car!
We stayed in Auckland arranging for the car and Pat's phone, and as soon as we had the car, we did a short tour of Auckland, hitting Mount Eden, a rose garden, the Domain, and then drove along the scenic TAmaki Drive out to where Joe and Barbara live. We planned to phone them later for a visit, but just stopped for
Pat's first station wagon
At Windehome Park just north of Orewa. Beautiful ocean coast and beach, treed picnic areas. Popular destination for Aucklanders on the weekends - I'd been there a few days beforehand with Liz and Fraser and there was no room to park. a coffee in the ocean-side strip called ST. Helier's. Pat wondered what the chances were that we'd bump into Joe and Barbara on the street, and I assured him that they were probably shopping in a different part of the city that day. We were sitting on a bench outside the library, when who should come out of the library but Joe and Barbara. Pat had seen the pictures of my uncle Joe I had sent by email, and he said "Isn't that Uncle Joe just there? " I looked up to see, and it was!!! Great surprise all round, and they invited us over right away, where we spent a few hours visiting. What a COINCIDENCE!!! Another Carney Classic story.
After a couple of days, we went on to some friends I made at the Unitarian church, Liz and Fraser. They live in Dairy Flat, and Liz has woofers stay at her place to help out on her farm. We stayed in the woofer's "summer house" as Liz calls it. Now we are on the road seeing the Northland part of North Island, a smallish peninsula extending up from the isthmus which houses the north and south shores
Orewa Beach
Lots of Kiwi swimmers, but the wind was a bit cool for us. Needed protection from the hot sun while not in the shade, and the water was "refreshing" to WADE in. of Auckland, a bit like the way that Vancouver sprawls across many sections of water.
Internet access is very limited, as we are far from big city conveniences. The connection is slow, and in Paihia (pronounced "PIE heah") where we came on this rainy day it's $6 per hour on old computers. I have also had many problems uploading to the servers on this web log, having lost several blogs I had worked on before publishing. Thankfully I was able to contact the hosts the last time and they were able to find my Dec 16 post and publish it for me. However, between the touchy servers at the travel log place and iffy connections on ancient computers with no USB ports, in rural NZ I'm unable to share many of my pictures. Hopefully this will change - perhaps when we reach Wellington.
Pat still can't believe he's on the other side of the world, it's been "in the works" for so long it's a bit unreal for him to finally be here. We are constantly struck by the open casual friendliness of the Kiwis. There is a certain innocence and small-town helpfulness about most folks here. I
Orewa Beach
NOrth of Auckland, a favourite destination of Kiwis - a bit like Wasaga Beach, but ocean and hardly any fast food places watched a wee tyke following his brother in a playground a couple of weeks ago, asking "Can I have a go? Can I have a go?" as the older one tossed a new ball around to his "mate". Sounds so funny coming from
such a wee fella - to my Canadian ears. The NZ flat vowels come in all sorts of shades and nuances as well. I'm told the South Islanders near Invercargill roll their RRRRR's like the Scots who first lived in the area and named the cities after their ones back home.
Most people spot our "accents" right off and ask about our trip, offering tips on good spots to go. Pat has had much advice about good fishing spots, which abound in both North and South Island.
Rotorura is next, a place of volcanoes, sulphur, hot pools and mud, caves,and the centre of Maori culture education. A Must See for NZ visitors.
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cliff
non-member comment
fast food off orewa beach
you're just un-initiated! there's the ubiquitous KFC,Macdonalds, n SubWay, Plus 2 off Thai, 1 x Indian as well as pommey fish 'n chips takeaways! All on the water front road....not cheek by jowl of course...we have more space to spare here!! (and We don't have to huddle close to keep warm!!)