Taranaki to Auckland then North

We've rented a car for the month of January and started on our exploration of the North Island.  We are checking out Northland then the Coromandel before hanging out with Elaine and Shane in Auckland for a few days.  Our trip has been great so far, WE SAW A KIWI IN THE WILD!!

Jan 28 – Taranaki Drive

Gabrielle and Dan had an early flight this morning but were kind enough to offer us a ride to the car rental place. We are transferring a car to Auckland meaning we have a free rental for 2 days. Getting a was both good and bad, good because we had a free ride, bad because we had to wait around for about an hour for the rent place to open. It was also a Saturday so the little cafe nearby didn't open till 9 either. So we just sat on the stoop till they opened at 8am. Our transfer car is a Subaru Legacy which is an all wheel drive station wagon and apparently takes premium gas. This might be a little expensive for gas, especially since regular is $2.11/L. We headed out of Wellington stopping into a couple of hardware stores to check out camp stoves. We didn't find the one we were looking for so we continued on our way. On our way out of town we picked up a french couple hitchhiking. They were trying to get to Tongariro so we took them as far as Whanganui. In this town we went to the the hardware store and bought a camp stove then went to the Countdown to pick up groceries. While there our cashier was telling us all about the tower they had in town. So we drove to check it out, it also boasts one of only two underground elevators in the world. It was a nice but windy view from the top of the tower. After our tower excursion we continued on our way along the coast around Mt Taranaki. Unfortunately the mountain had a big cloud sitting on the top of it so the view wasn't quite what it could have been. We finally stopped at a holiday park for dinner and camping. These places are a little expensive but have full kitchen facilities. The place was pretty much deserted too. We made dinner and enjoyed a mug of wine before heading to bed. It is our first night in the tent.

War Memorial Tower

Whanganui Town

Jan 29 – Taranaki to Auckland

There is nothing like starting your with a brewery tasting. Shortly after we had gotten back on the road this morning there was a sign for Mike's organic brewery so obviously we had to stop. The grounds were nice and we headed into an older building for our tastings. They had hosted a wedding the night before and were still in the process of cleaning up. It would have been a very cool wedding venue with a rustic country feel. Beau and I split on a tasting, only $5, and we got to try 6 different 4 ounce tastings. We tried a strawberry blonde, an ale, a lager, a pilser, a coffee porter and a whisky porter. I'm not sure how to describe a porter but the whisky actually quite good and the coffee one was a little too burnt coffee tasting. We continued on our drive make a stop at a black sand beach. It had to be the softest, finest sand I've ever felt. We stopped for gas later on and it hurt to fill the car, it takes premium and was $2.18/L. OUCH! We drove onto Hamilton where we stopped to exchange an inverter we had bought for the car to charge our electronics. Then it was on to Auckland. We arrived in Auckland around dinner time and Elaine and Shane had some left over food they fed us although we were prepared to cook for ourselves. We spent the evening talking, and discussing our plans.

Beau on the Black Sand Beach

Pretty cool drift wood!

Jan 30 – Auckland

Elaine and Shane were headed to Australia today to meet back up with Mom and Dad. Beau was very sweet and drove them even though they had to be there at 5:30am. After dropping them off he had about an hour to kill before he returned the car, then took the bus back to the apartment. While he was doing all this I commandeered Elaine's bed since the air-mattress was mighty uncomfortable. When Beau got back we looked into some more rental cars and possibly buying a car. We weren't sure we would end up with the car we had booked online the night before as their system seemed a little dodgy. We ended up finding another car to rent and booked it. We called the online company to cancel the car but it's a 100% cancellation fee. I had a small panic moment but we uncancelled our car and will hopefully be picking up a little 2 door hatch back tomorrow for $22/day. We are for now keeping the other booking since they don't have our card info. With that relatively sorted we decided to go down to the waterfront. I was a little turned around coming out of Elaine's and we set off walking perpendicular to the water, ooops. We corrected ourselves and meandered on down. Today is a public holiday so there were all kinds of things going on in town. We saw dragon boat races, buskers (it was the World Buskers Festival), all kinds of sail boats and there was also a seafood festival which cost too much to get in to. We enjoyed our walk along the waterfront. We needed to pick up a few things to make dinner so we started hunting up a grocery store. Elaine had told me where to go but I couldn't remember her directions. During our hunt we were sidetracked by a big group of people gathered around a busker who was about the perform. He apparently used to work for Cirque de Soleil. He did a few balancing, strength acts at first, balancing on one hand, balancing on two hands then touching his toes to the top of his head. His big act though was balancing on one hand on a 15ft pole with 4 guys from the audience working to keep this pole steady then spinning in a circle. It was pretty cool and very dangerous. I would guess he makes quite a bit of money doings this as there was quite the crowd gathered around. After all the excitement we found the grocery store then hiked back to Elaine's. It's very up hill! After dinner we started organizing our stuff and where we were going. We also had a great chat with Elaine's roommate Katherine and she gave us some tips on where to go in NZ.

Super cool sail boat in Auckland Harbour

The acrobatic busker

Jan 31 – Northland

This morning we picked up our rental car without much trouble. The guy was a little late picking us up from Elaine's but no biggie. We had reserved a little 2 door hatch back but they didn't have any so they gave us a 4 door hatch back, it probably rents for $30/day instead of $22 but we got it for the agreed price. We nipped back to Elaine's, grabbed our stuff and hit the road (we also sent the other rental company an e-mail cancelling our booking for that day, they don't have our card info so too bad for them). Our exit from Auckland wasn't too smooth, we couldn't figure out how to get back on the high way at first. But eventually we figured it out. After lunch we switched driving so I got my first experience on the other side of the road. I did okay although I turned on the windshield wipers several times instead of signalling, and signalled the wrong way once too. It's also a little different to keep yourself centered in the road, you tend hug the left side which is okay if there is a shoulder but in most cases there isn't. We arrived in Dargaville without incident and picked up some groceries. The price of vege's was ridiculous but we got a premixed vege pack on sale. After leaving the kumara (sweet potato) capitol we head to our DOC campsite in Trounson Kauri Park. We had forgotten to get change to pay for our camp site but got very lucky that a camp warden had just arrived on site and he gave us change. We set up the tent and then went for a walk through the scenic reserve. The reserve is very strict about keeping contaminates out and provide boot washing stations. This is to preserve the Kauri trees which used to be found all over the North Island but now only pockets of forest are still alive. This is one of the best opportunities to see a kiwi in the wild, crossing my fingers! After our walk we played crib and made dinner. After eating we were looking over the maps getting a feel for where we were going tomorrow when a woman came to let us know she was selling some local produce from her car. We walked over to check it out and the woman commented on my Tiger Beer t-shirt. We got to talking, she was from Vietnam and we told her all about our travels. We bought some avocado , cucumber and zucchini from her for $3.50 but as we were leaving she handed us a bag of beans and said they were on her because she liked us! Funny to think we got some free beans all because I'm wearing my Tiger Beer shirt.

We got lucky with the kiwis!! On our night walk we saw two of them digging for grubs in the ground. We didn't know if we'd hear them or know they were near by but we heard something moving in the underbrush and our handy red lights showed us the kiwis. The red light is necessary to not blind the kiwis with your flashlights and it doesn't scare them away. We were able to watch them searching for food in their natural habitat. One of them did get a little annoyed at our presents and made some strange high pitched cawing noise. I had no idea what a kiwi would sound like but I didn't expect the noise it did make. We also saw a few glow worms which look like twinkling stars in the forest. I have to say that seeing kiwis in their natural environment is one of the highlights of this trip!