The Weekend

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While he was at work, Sam offered to loan me his car since there didn’t appear to be much of anything anywhere within walking distance of the house. I’d driven right hand drive in Australia before so I was sure it would all come back to me. I went out to the car, opened the door and staring back at me was a clutch and gear lever. Huh. Well I’m only jet lagged as balls and out of practice, what could possibly go wrong. Turns out I’m a high functioning post-trans-pacific flight-er and everything went just fine. Didn’t even stall. As far as Sam knows.

I got back from lunch and I didn’t think I was tired. I just figured I’d rest my eyes for a second. Well that second turned into a couple hours until I woke up feeling like I’d been cooked in a microwave. The bedroom faced east, allowing the summer sun to beat in through the windows. Oh and the house didn’t have any insulation, as with many homes in this part of New Zealand. Sam likened this to living in a tent. Central heat also isn’t much of thing here either, even in the much cooler southern part of the country. Sam’s wife, Martina, said that during university she and her room mates would essentially eat at the dinner table in sleeping bags. Seems like she will be well prepared for coming to Canada later this year after all.

In the evening we took Charlie out to the beach. Well one of the beaches. This part of New Zealand is so skinny to can pretty much just pick which coast you want to visit; they’re both the same distance. And on this beach you don’t need to park and drag all your gear out onto the sand. You just take your truck and drive onto the beach. At break neck speed if you’re so inclined; it goes for miles. While throwing the ball into the surf for Charlie we watched two oversized men on minibikes tear by, with a rust bucket Nissan pick-up in hot pursuit. After confirming that McFlurries are exactly the same on the other side of the world as they are at home, we drank beer and watched ridiculous movies until 4AM.

Next day we decided to head into Auckland once our minor hangovers subsided. But not before being a couple of mining dorks and going for a quick drive through the quarry Sam works at. As far I could tell this was essentially a dirt quarry, but said dirt must’ve been valuable to someone somewhere. We took the dog out again to a different beach, then enjoyed the weekend traffic on the way downtown. Our first stop was the Auckland “Sky Tower”. Like the Calgary Tower, if offers a rotating restaurant but Sky Tower has a couple of distinct advantages. First, it hasn’t been usurped height-wise by adjacent corporate office towers but more importantly you can bungee jump off the bloody thing. Standing on the observation deck I was starting to doubt my previous claim of wanting to try bungee jumping later on during this trip.

After politely declining the touristy Sky Tower photographs shoved in our face at the tower exit we walked down to the waterfront, where all the cool cats and groovy chicks hang out. And some obscenely expensive yachts. Auckland was going to be hosting the sailboats of the Volvo Ocean Race, a race around the world for nothing more than the glory of having done it. The participating boats would be arriving on Monday so many tents with displays and exhibitions were set up in anticipation. Apparently this is a very serious race, as one team supposedly had their appendixes removed to save weight. And despite eating 6000 calories a day, most contestants lose about 10 kg for every leg of the race. Yet no contestants appeared to have shaved their heads, which to me would be a huge performance advantage and be significantly less invasive then removing non-essential organs. We dropped by a local bar for an adult beverage and some Metallica pin ball then sat on the patio of a Mexican restaurant to people-watch. After what’s been a long, cold winter back home I had renewed my appreciation for shorts and summer dresses.

Sunday essentially just started with “let’s find breakfast” and went from there. We ate a café in Papakura and on our way back we fortunately took a wrong turn to across come a proper race track with cars flying around it with reckless abandon. Looks like we found our next activity. Seemed like there was a bit of everything out there that day. One race of entirely cheap 1990’s BMWs all being driven as if they were stolen, another with classic European cars like MGs and Jaguars of varying performance, and another with a bunch Nascar-esque V8 monstrosities.

On the topic of cars New Zealand seems to have an endless supply of mediocre Japanese compacts. Example: back home Toyota offers the Corolla and the Yaris. Here, in addition to those, I’ve seen the “Runx”, the “FunCargo”, the “Wish”, the “Avensis”, and the “Sai”. And while most vehicle prices are comparable to home, 25 old Land Cruisers sell for $20k and a standard new-ish Chevy pick-up is over $100k. Not that many people have full size pick-ups here, partially because you’d need a mortgage to buy one and another mortgage each time you fueled it up at over $2.00 a litre. If want to tow anything, a boat, a caravan, a flat deck trailer, most people just use their sedans and station wagons. If it’ll get out of first gear it’s good to go.

We finished off Sunday at the beach where Charlie demonstrated his obsession with paddle boarding. He’s one of those dogs where everything is his favourite thing. “Car ride? Oh boy that’s my favourite thing!” “Oh boy swimming is my favourite thing!” “Mmm, McDonalds fries, my favourite thing!” You know Charlie, I think since I’ve gotten here everything has been my favourite as well.

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Photos

The Country Side
During an afternoon walk the first day

Black sand beach
The sand here is very soft and fun the drive on. I found it way more fun than I should have.

View from Sky Tower
Notice the obnoxious pink cycling path

Downtown from the harbour
Wish I'd brought my trunks to jump in

Panhead Brewery Taps
This was my kind of place. Walls were decorated with rock band posters and Hot Rod Magazine covers

Puke Restaurant
HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Puke. HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA

The track
Saw a bunch of near-crashes too. I'm sure they shouted "WITNESS ME!" as they wrestled for control.

The other beach
Better to swim in but you can't drive on it.

Comments

[paul]

looks like you should be greeting Bilbo and Sam along the side of the road.

[Trevor]

Keep it up and enjoy
Absolutely love the blog keep it up; it just shows what a personality you are