Almost over

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March 6th

Haven’t mastered the map on this travel blog thing so here is my rendition. Hope you can see it.

Here we are in Whatawhiwhi (pronounced Fatafifi) It is on a beautiful bay and the weather has been great. Today, we are actually sitting for the day. Larry just arrived back from the golf course. We arrived here on March 4th , spent the night and then yesterday took a bus tour out to Cape Reinga. Cape Reinga is the most northerly tip of NZ. It was fantastic. The Tasman Sea and the Pacific meet there. Then we jumped back on our 40 seat bus and proceeded to drive through a considerably large stream for miles and finally got to the beach but not before we stopped to surf the sand dunes. Or I should say some surfed the dunes. Bonnie represented our family with great gusto. They climbed up to the top of a sand dune that was probably about 75 feet and then with a wake board and her on her tummy came bouncing down the hill at a million miles an hour. Everybody ate sand, snorted sand and basically had sand where sand does not normally belong.

We carried on in the bus out to the ocean and drove 64 miles down the beach over more streams, through the surf and eventually turned back up onto the highway. Actually, this piece of sand has been deemed a highway so all the rules of the road apply. Lots of tour buses and some private cars. The whole day adventure was great fun. Lots of stops along the way and new sights to see.

Our NZ adventure is winding down. We have traveled from Auckland, down the East coast,ferried to the South Island, continued down the East coast of the South Island, then across the bottom, or as bottom as we chose to go, over to the West Coast, up the West Coast and back over to the ferry, back up, right past Auckland to the North tip of NZ. Tomorrow we head to Auckland for our last few days there to see the sights. We leave Auckland on Monday for Sydney.

We saw some beautiful sights on the West Coast. Raging oceans and long sandy beaches. Spent the night with people that will stay at our place in the summer we met through Home exchange. We arrived in the afternoon, had a lovely lamb dinner, slept and left. It was great. Not quite what home exchange is all about but it just didn’t work for us to stay any longer at their home but it was great to have a home cooked meal and meet new friends.

Ross got a warning for speeding in South Island. The officer explained that you just never know when you will round a corner and have a herd of sheep or beef on the road and it causes a terrible mess. Shortly after this we rounded a corner and low and behold cattle all over the road and then we stopped for lunch and found a ‘Gaol’ with Ross’s name on it. It was meant to be. The warning has been heeded and no misadventures.

For those with New Zealand on their travel radar. It is not to be missed. Gasoline is pricey. We have paid approximately $1.74.9 to $193.9 (over on the West Coast).
We have stayed in lots of Top 10’s. There are tons of this accommodation around. We have been getting 2 bedroom units. Usually they have 2 bedrooms, a kitchen, with untensils, fridge, stove etc and a sitting room with a TV and some have had internet, for a fee. We have paid anywhere from $117NZ (about 80% of Can) to $160 a night. Considering it is 2 couples sharing it is not a bad deal. Our Jucy van is old but reliable and is costing about $48NZ per day. Eating out is very expensive. There is no tipping in NZ but I think it is reflected in the price. They apparently pay their servers a reasonable wage. A sandwich would cost approx $15NZ. I had Seafood salad the other night that was truly average for $28.50. We have been eating most meals in. We eat cereal for breakfast and make bunwiches for lunch and then stop and decide what we want for dinner and Larry cooks. Sounds good, doesn’t it. We have been here a month and I think we have spent about $5,000 Cad.

In Australia, we have 5 weeks of home exchanges organized so that will cut the cost a lot.

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