Advertisement
Published: January 24th 2011
Edit Blog Post
Day 98
12th December
So we checked out of the Base Auckland and walked down to the Escape shop. They were dealing with another couple that were picking up their van when we turned up, so we dumped our stuff and went across the road to get some food supplies for lunch and dinner that day. The campervan came with a gas burner and pans etc in the back and we were quite looking forward to a bit of open air cooking! Once the other couple were done, it was our turn! I signed all the paperwork and we paid for everything. The van was ours! We’d decided to hire a sat nav as, although Ellory and I don’t argue very much, when we do, 80% of the time it’s about where we’re going. This sat nav was to cause us all sorts of problems later.
Before we left Auckland we decided to go to Kelly Tarlton’s. Which is an aquarium and Antarctica centre, it has one of those tunnels going through the tanks, which Ellory had never done so he was looking forward to that and I was looking forward to the penguins! We bought our tickets and
stopped by a place where you could put your hand in 2 degree centigrade water so you could feel what it was like in Antarctic waters. Flipping cold is the answer. It was so cold that my hand ached for ages afterwards! Before we went to see the penguins we stopped by the stingray tank and watched them slowly flapping by, they were massive, over a metre across and so cool to watch.
The way you get to see the penguins is by getting in a car which goes on a track around the penguin area. We got in one and off we went. This was such a cool experience, there were 2 types of penguins and we got to see them swimming in the water or hanging out on the ice together. They are also breeding which is always pretty amazing in captivity, especially an animal like the penguin that travels huge distances, so there were some babies! I also spotted a baby penguin tucked away safely in their parent’s chuff (mum and dad that one was for you!) and despite we were taking photos through the window of the little car, Ellory got some great ones! Next
was the giant walk through aquarium and this was amazing, walking through the tunnels with sharks and fish swimming around you. There were also tanks of beautiful tropical fish so that was a lovely way to spend a few hours. However we planned to drive down to Waitomo that afternoon so we decided to hit the road.
This is where the sat nav of doom happened. This thing was possessed. Waitomo is approx 2 ½ drive away from Auckland and the sat nav we had didn’t do how long it would take to drive, only the distance. So I typed in Waitomo and the journey distance was a little longer than I expected but I didn’t think anything of it. So on we drove. It wasn’t until about an hour later when we turned off Highway 1 that we started to think something was odd. I don’t know how everyone’s geography of New Zealand is, but the short story is, for every location we typed into the sat nav while we were on the North Island, it wanted to take us round the Coromandel Peninsular. This is a twisty hilly bit of road that in a campervan is a
very interesting bit of driving!! By the time we had worked this out, we were a considerable distance from Waitomo as the sat nav was taking us the very very long way round. (Waitomo is directly south from Auckland, the sat nav was taking us East, then South East for a bit and then West to Waitomo). I was a bit tired by then as the roads had taken a lot of my concentration so we decided that instead to going to Waitomo, we would stop near Matamata and then we could go to Hobbiton, the set of the Shire in Lord of the Rings the next day. We found a very nice campsite to stay for the night, cooked up a feast of pasta, tuna and sauce and turned our van into a sweet as bed. Escape, your vans are very very comfy!
Love Liz xxx
Advertisement
Tot: 0.107s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 53; dbt: 0.0656s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb