Motorway madness and the road to Northland

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12 February 2011

The sunrise was stunning and I wanted to stay but we hadn't booked another night in Raglan. I think we were both more than a little sad to be moving on but, if we were to head North, we needed to move this morning.

We had been lucky enough at Solspace to have access to a fridge so the cool box (or 'chilly bin' as they call them here) had been redundant for a few days. This necessitated a quick stop at the supermarket in town for a bag of ice before we got on our way. We had been advised that that is the best way to keep the contents of the cool box cool and it does work pretty efficiently. However, and that is a big however, you also have to be prepared to find your food drowning even after the shortest of excursions in the coldest parts of the country - watery cheese is very much an acquired taste.

I had gamely decided to give Gregg a break from driving thinking that the drive North ought to be an easy one. It was, that is until we reached Auckland where I promptly found myself feeling really rather scared. I am, it is fair to say, a bit of a wimp when it comes to driving in unusual circumstances. Here, I found the size of the van combined with the very narrow motorway lanes just a little freaky.

A word here about motorways. If you are thinking M25 or even M5 then please, dear reader, think again. Motorways here in NZ can be anything from ordinary ‘A’ type roads to, in the Auckland area only, a proper three lane thoroughfare. If there are restrictions on slow traffic using them nobody told me and it is quite common for the speed limit to vary wildly and, lest you think we had missed them for a while, railway lines to cross them. Then there’s the bends and the hills and the narrow lanes and this is more a high speed experience on the A1 than a traffic jam in six lanes of traffic on the M25 type of experience.

Talking of traffic jams, my goodness, we found one. We passed through a little coastal town called Orewa in order to avoid paying a $2 toll and, more importantly, to see the sea. Orewa was celebrating meaning that the avoiding road was closed and, hey presto, we found ourselves in a traffic jam. I think that it lasted all of about 10 minutes but, having spent nearly three weeks zooming around on practically vehicle free roads, it did seem like quite a long ten minutes.

The reason for this festival seemed to be Kite Surfing for, as we rounded a hill on the climb up out of Orewa, we were granted a glimpse of the stretch of beach that we missed and there were quite literally hundreds of these things doing their thing in the bay below. I should also say that, long before this point, I had had enough of freaking out in the drivers’ seat and had handed over the reigns to Gregg once again. I did manage about 2 ½ hours in control tho which, I think, was a terribly good show.

Gregg wound on along State Highway 1 which took us to a town called Paihia, our plan being to stop in here briefly before heading a little further North for the night. Having wandered around Paihia, baked in the sun and set the world to rights on a beach overlooking the Bay of Islands, we had changed plans and Paihia was to become the furthest North that our NZ journey will take us. (Which, to be fair, is nearly all the way up!)

Paihia is a small town and the gateway to the Bay of Islands. It is also right next to Waitangi - which is considered to be the birth place of NZ and the site of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi between Maori Chiefs and the British Crown on 6 February 1840.(You may remember we mentioned Waitangi day only last week.) The town offers glimpses into the bay of islands but I think that to really get any concept of just how many tiny islands there are in this bay you would really need to see them from the air (or from a boat with plenty of time.)

Luckily, on the way into Paihia, we had noticed a sign for a campsite on the bay and having loaded up with the evening’s grub, we headed out there to stake our claim to a patch of grass. That particular patch of grass was to become our resting place for not one, but two, nights and it was just perfect for stopping still.

We have moved on nearly every night for the last three weeks and covered somewhere approaching 4,000km (we’ll work out the exact figure once we reach Auckland) and, to put it bluntly, we are both a bit knackered. Besides, tomorrow is Sunday and what are Sundays for if not veging out in front of the tv doing not much? No tv, no sofa but never mind that.

13 February 2011

Today was perfectly lazy. We headed out at lunchtime for some supplies and a quick shoot over the bridge to Waitangi. It would have cost $20 each to visit the actual site of the signing of the treaty so we gave that a miss and just enjoyed the scenery between there and Paihia instead.

Back at the site, we happily whiled away an afternoon surfing the web, playing games and catching a few rays. As I have said of other days like this, boring to read and write about but totally what the doctor ordered.

Tomorrow we will head back in the direction of Auckland ready for our next flight on Wednesday but today was a day for staying still and appreciating the beauty of where we were. It was a day that required nothing of us other than that.

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Photos

Auckland Harbour Bridge
Ihow clammy were my hands at this point?!?!