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Our first view of New Zealand
See why they call it Aotearoa, the Land of the Long White Cloud We arrived in Auckland on Friday, May 25 - one day before Ryan’s working holiday visa would’ve become invalid. Old fart.
Luckily for us we made it through immigration/customs with no problems. Though we had done a fair amount of hiking in Fiji, and were therefore a bit worried about our sandals(!), we managed not to bring any unauthorized dirt/plant material with us - a crime punishable by a $100,000 fine. No kidding - they’re serious about environmental protection in New Zealand. We were relieved to make it in.
After about an hour of unsuccessfully trying to use the pay phones (don’t ask us to explain what we were doing wrong - we still haven’t figured it out!) to arrange a place to stay, we were on our way to a hostel in Central Auckland. For those of you interested in coming to Auckland, don’t stay at ACB (Auckland Central Backpackers) unless you’re 22 and trying to get laid. If you’re trying to buy a car or sleep, this place is not for you. We stayed there for 3 nights. Because we are the ultimate dorky tourists, we jumped at the chance to get free passes to the
Sky Tower, which were issued to anyone paying for 3 nights at ACB.
So we spent our first afternoon in Auckland doing what every tourist does. We rode to the top of the Sky Tower (Auckland’s version of the Space Needle or Empire State Building - it’s the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere), took pictures, and enjoyed outrageously overpriced (or so we thought at the time) beverages while watching the sunset. Cheesy as it was, we had a good time. It wasn’t raining, so the views were really pretty.
After getting a bit tipsy, we walked to Karangahape Road (referred to, for obvious reasons, simply as K Road) for some more drinks (still overpriced in our minds) and the BEST kebabs ever (In Erin’s opinion -- Ryan thought they were OK. But he didn’t order the super-spicy kebab because he’s a wimp. So for those of you who can actually handle the heat, definitely check out “Little Turkish Café.” You won’t be disappointed).
We spent the entire next day looking for a van. Since our hostel had a really stupid policy of not posting car/van sales on a message board, we walked all over central Auckland,
popping into other (superior) hostels that had information about vans for sale. Late in the afternoon, we ended up at a small car market to look at the first van that really interested us. It took us one more car market and two more days, but we ended up buying that first van. Check out the pictures to see why - this van, later dubbed “Shifty C. Bubbles”, kicks ass. Most of the time… “C.” stands for “Crapbucket”. Like all parents, we only use the full name when we’re mad at him, like when the headlights don’t work (that happened a few weeks after getting Shifty. We were driving around at dusk, looking for a campsite, and all of a sudden had no light. More on that later, though…).
Shifty (our van, not the former RAT employee) is a 1988 Toyota Hiace (yeah, we had never heard of that model, either) diesel. Even though Erin had never successfully driven a manual transmission, that’s what we ended up with. He’s a column shifter, just to make it even weirder, and is a TOTAL hippy van. He’s recently had a makeover, but he came with this really sweet day-glow orange and
Our signature Shot
You'll see a lot of these in various locations -- We have no friends yet!
pink daisy print duvet cover. Matched the orange curtains, which are straight out of the ‘70s. SOOO cool.
What we really like about Shifty is the way he’s been customized to meet the needs of poor vagabonds like ourselves. Aside from a toilet (we have a shovel) and shower, he has everything we need. The middle section is convertible and functions as the closet/pantry/living/dining/bedroom. The middle section of the (queen-sized!) bed pops up and forms a table between two benches facing each other, which is nice to have when you’re camping in the rain. As long as the parking spot is level, it works really well for Yahtzee. The kitchen is at the rear, and has a counter with a sink (which, after some minor home renovations, eventually had running water), two-burner camp stove, cooler, and storage for all our kitchen equipment.
When we took possession of the van, we were still in Auckland. Since Ryan was the only one able (at the time - Erin has been learning) to drive a manual transmission, he drew driving duty. Using a column shifter, driving on the left, and trying to navigate roundabouts - all for the first time -
was a bit much to attempt in the middle of the biggest city in the country at rush hour, so we decided to leave Auckland as quickly as possible. After an hour or so of driving practice through the suburbs (where we’re sure all the parents were quite alarmed at the shady looking van slowly circling their streets and parking near the primary school), we headed south towards the Coromandel Peninsula and uncrowded rural roads.
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