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Published: March 18th 2010
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Day 26 - Mon March 1st
Today was the day we were going to pick up our campervan, so we caught a taxi out to the depot and meet our home on wheels for the next few weeks. We knew it was going to be old, so it is pretty much as we expected, a bit battered and a bit scabby. The woman doing the handover was clearly a bit rushed and didn’t entirely fill us with confidence, especially when Jake checked the van over and noticed that a couple of the tires were worn. So we had barely had the van for 5 minutes before we were in the garage round the corner, getting not 2 but 3 of the tires changed. We wondered what else could be wrong with it……
We drove to the local supermarket to stock ourselves up and as there were obviously several depots in the area, there were a fair few other vans in the car park and we started to get very jealous of the new looking vehicles, with power steering, air con, spacious cabins, etc all things we didn’t have! Surprisingly enough though, we did have a relatively new stereo with
a cd player, which scuppered our ideas of listening to tapes and so the Los Lobos tape that we purchased on the advice of C&C would have to go unplayed!
Once loaded up we hit the road and headed for a campsite that Amy’s relative had recommended. It was quite windy on the road and with a high top we were being blow around quite a bit, added to the heavy steering meant both hands on the wheel for Jake and a lot of effort to keep us straight. We had to make a pit stop to pay a $2 toll and somehow ended up with a sneaky ice cream at the same time! An hour or so later we followed the directions along a gravel road, which we are not supposed to drive down in the van so we hoped it would just be a short road, but unfortunately it seemed to go on forever. We made it in the end to a deserted campsite and were greeted by the owner on a quad bike. We had some trouble ascertaining whether the power in our van was working, even though it was plugged in, and we thought we
may have to drive back down to Auckland to get it sorted but luckily it was just the campsite mains switch that needed resetting. We settled in for the night, cooking our first meal in the van, listening to the radio, updating our journals and we even got a visit from the campsite dog.
Day 27 - Tues March 2nd
So we survived our first night in the tin can. Once the bed is set up, there is absolutely no room to move around and the old wood that makes up the bed creaks every time you turn over, plus the fridge buzzes to life every half hour or so, but hopefully these are noises we will learn to tune out.
Anyway we had breakfast, washed in the spider/dirt/mould infested showers and made the 20 min walk to the beach. On arriving to the deserted beach, we realised we had left our wallets in the van and not wanting to tempt thieves Jake walked back up there to fetch them, although he got a bit lost on the way back, due to the lack of signs, and ended up driving back down again! Amy took the time
to soak up some rays and watch some dude on a surf board who was also using a paddle to move through the water. Jake had a bit of a paddle, but decided the water was too cold for swimming.
After lunch we hit the road again and headed further north to Paihia in the Bay of Islands. The problem with having a campervan is that you can rarely find campsites close to town and always have to move a few kms outside town, meaning you can’t walk to any of the bars/cafes/shops. We checked out a few sites and then settled on the banks of a river by the Haruru falls. These were a very small falls which were supposed to light up at night. We thought this might mean they were lit up by some coloured lights, but no, they were just lit up with a normal light, which was very disappointing. More so, had you paid money to go on a boat tour to the falls which we had seen some people do!
It started to spit with rain a bit, but we had parked the van such that when we opened the back door we
could still sit and eat our dinner in the dry but with a nice view of the falls.
Day 28 - Wed March 3rd
Today we decided to do a boat trip around the Bay of Islands, as this generally what people come here to do. But first we decided to head over to the neighbouring village/town of Russell. We could have caught the ferry across, but no, we thought we’d take the scenic route and ended up on another never ending gravel road. Before this however we had come to a railway crossing, where there are no barriers and you have to check yourself whether there is a train coming or not!
We finally arrived in Russell, which is small and quaint with one row of shops and the pier where the boats leave from. We checked into the only campsite there and booked an afternoon boat trip. We wandered along to the pier and scoffed a delicious ice cream on the way. The weather had been lovely right up to the point when we got on the boat, when the clouds turned grey and the wind started up. So Amy decided to swallow some sea
sickness tablets and sit inside concentrating on the horizon, whilst Jake sat up the front outside getting a bit wind swept, but took some good pics. We managed to see a pod of dolphins, cruised round some of the islands and sailed through a hole in a rock. The weather turned a bit better as we sailed back and we were shown a fairly large island that is owned privately - nice.
Once back in Russell we wandered in the shops, outside of one there was a sign that said ‘Your friend may be a while, please sit here’ and outside another it said ‘In 1822 nothing happened here’. We also saw the oldest church in NZ, which was built in 1836, although by British standards, that isn’t really that old!
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peter webster
non-member comment
new zealand
Very impressed and very professional. Hope your great time continues