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Published: November 19th 2009
Day 3
So it was finally time to pick up the campervan. We arrived at a tiny depot and picked up a small fat van, the man quickly ran over a million things that we had to remember none of which we did. So we settled ourselves in and had to set off before Tom lost his nerve, we then had our first argument as the van was massive compared to the Jazz Tom is used to driving and it was making alot of groaning and screeching noises. We got to a roundabout and couldn't work out whether the man had told us to go left or right to the supermarket! I inevitably told him to go the wrong way so we had to pull into a cafe to have a calming coffee. Eventually we got ourselves going and plugged in the sat nav - the best $75 we have EVER spent, after that there was alot less arguing, and we worked out that we had to pull out the choke to stop the groaning. All was bliss.
We drove for three hours over to Waipoua Kauri forest passing the most spectacular landscapes - flat plains, mountains and forests.
We worked out two things on our journey - 1: the weather is as changeable as the landscape it will go from brilliant sunshine at 30 degrees to torrential rain - literally four seasons in one day. 2: The campervan's driver door didn't shut properly meaning we had to drive with two windows down (slightly problematic in torrential rain) to stop the whistling and we were constantly pulling to the left meaning Tom was permanently tring to compensate with the steering.
When we finally arrived at the campsite we spent a while trying to figure out exactly what we had to do with the power/water etc and then decided we would like a beer. The lady told us that the nearest tavern was 4 k away and we wouldn't be able to walk - being English we decided to walk. An hour later we arrived slightly bedraggled after our hill walking (gorgeous scenery though) at a really friendly little tavern where we bought some beer to take back. Whilst at the tavern we decided on a name for the campervan... Betty as she is flightly fat, broken and ageing - but we love her all the same!
Day
4
We made our way into Waipoua Kauri Forset to see the biggest trees in New Zealand i think some of their trunks were about 20m in diameter. Afterwards we decided to head over to the Bay of Islands, again passing some stunning scenery we rounded a corner and saw the most beautiful view of these massive sand dunes, crystal clear blue waters and a backdrop of mountains (check out the photos, i think they are on the front entries page of the blog as i cannot save them in with the text?) After consulting the guide book we realised that this was Opononi and you could do sand duning here so this is what we decided to do - sledging down sand dunes on body board type things - the walk back up is slightly more vigorous though, i think both of us were desperately wishing for a charilift. After spending a couple of hours in Opononi we decided that we loved it here and found a campsite to stay at thinking we would head to the Bay of Islands tomorrow. We then bought fish and chips (possibly the best i have ever had) and a walk on
the beach before bed as we were still on England time about 11 hours behind!
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Stevie J
non-member comment
fantastic
I've entered the 21st century. I am reading a blog. New Zealand looks incredible. Betty's roof does look pretty darn comfortable. I do hope you gave that massive tree a massive hug. I'm currently in the process of getting Marcus organised; a gargantuan task for one man I know but we WILL be joining you in Singapore. Well. Not really sure what else to say except that you don't need that comma in your second sentence; it should be two separate sentences or use a semi colon. I'm very sorry. I'm extremely pedantic I know. Love you both.