Road Stories With Sunny

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I guess it was last Friday Morning that I awoke, around 5:30 am, and waited in nervous anticipation to collect my rental car. I was nervous to drive on the opposite or wrong side of the road and also Auckland is a large city to start. So I got picked up at around ten to go collect my car. And sure enough at first glance I couldn't be any more disapointed. The car looked to be old enough to vote with it's dull white paint falling off the side. Then I jumped in and started driving with very vague directions from the staff, "That way is north". So out onto the highway, middle lane all the way. Across the harbour bridge and within 30 minutes the roads narrowed and the traffic lessened. Mind you it did take the best part of a day to be able to drive the car well, as I did go through a traffic circle then down the right hand side of the road (nobody was around to see it). The drive north was beautiful as I drove past farmland, up narrow hillsides and even through forests. The narrow New Zealand roads are beautiful but they are narrow and have a speed limit of 100 km/h. Which makes them quite scary to a tourist like me. The most random part of the day was when I noticed that my car was a Nissan Sunny. So my car has a name Sunny.

I spent a total of four days in Paihia, but I meant to spend only one or two. The town is a chilled out beach town with alot of activities to do. Sailing, ecotours, swimming with dolphins, jet boating are just a few of the things to do. It rained for most of the four days that I was there so no water adventures got accomplished. The only things I really accomplished was seeing some waterfalls, visiting glowworm caves and doing some cycling. The hostel I stayed at had plenty of really nice people to spend some time with. So we partied one night, drove around taking in the sights or just enjoyed the peacefulness of the beach town and tried to stay out of the rain. I can't really say that I did alot of exciting things but I had a great time in the Bay of Islands and it was hard to leave.

The most random thing was probably visiting the toilets. I forget the story but they were designed by some artist of some sort. They had empty bottles in the walls, pillars out front and colourful tiles all over. The gloworm caves were interesting. You walk into this cave with your guide holding a kerosene lamp. When he turns off the lamp the cave ceiling glows a neon green. Apparently this is how the worms catch flies. The tour took about 25 minutes and that was enough of these freak worms for me for the day.

The real story of the last few days has been Sunny. She is a real handful. Her suspension is loose which makes cornering nowhere near pleasant. Hill climbing would be Sunny's weakness. I can recall seeing a string of cars behind me when I was climbing some larger inclines. But the thing I like about Sunny is that she just keeps on going, and I hope she does up until Sunday when I give here back. That will be a sad day...

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Comments

[Nancy]

SUNNY!
Just had to say Sunny looks nothing like the "Golf-ton"! Take care....looks like you are having a blast! Enjoy!