Hello 2009 (Road Trip Part l)

So Christmas here in New Zealand was good. I missed my family (it was only my 2nd Christmas away from home, ever), but I had good friends to spend the holidays with.

Dave and I said goodbye to our friend Matt on 27 Dec. While Matt had quit his job to make it to Dave’s birthday and begin a tour of the country with his girlfriend (whom he was picking up at the airport), Dave had begun his annual 3 week Christmas holiday from work. Most all the trades here still take 3 weeks off for the holidays (electricians, plumbers, and carpenters). As for me, I never really quit and was never really fired. In the end – the owners of the café I was working at decided that they didn’t actually want to own, or run, a café. They closed the doors on Wednesday 17 December. Since they hadn’t given me the required one week notice, they ended up paying me for another week of work that I didn’t do!! So, that worked out lovely! I had investigated getting another job – and even passed up one that would have kept me employed into January. While I really would have liked the money another job put in my pocket, I really couldn’t pass up the opportunity to spend a full 2 weeks travelling the country with Dave…… Well, at that time we weren’t sure if it was going to be 2 or 3 weeks off work, but we wanted to be back home for a festival in 2 weeks anyway…..

So, late in the afternoon of Sunday, 28 December, Dave and I set out on our first road trip together!!! We had decided to go to Mount Taranaki/Egmont – on the south west side of the north island. Dave had never been to this area and it was one place I knew I wouldn’t have time to see with my mom. The plan was solidified when we found that there was a New Year’s Eve concert in the Taranaki area, a kiwi band we both enjoy (Opshop, with Autozamm as the opening act). We had a map, a destination, and an arrival time, but everything in between and after was up in the air.

In the end, our road trip covered 2,125 km of road, used 210 L of gas, and produced over 2,000 digital photographs! We used my car, Jim, for our travels – as it gets slightly better fuel efficiency than Dave’s run around V6 car and is a bit roomier (being a station wagon rather than a sedan). The 1,321 mile trip used 55.5 US gallons of gas…… giving Jim a fuel efficiency of 23.8 mpg (10.12 km/L) or, as many New Zealanders say, 9.88 litres per 100 kilometres. Basically, it’s not the best fuel rate, but it’s not to bad either – especially since we were driving some gravely, winding, mountainous, back roads with Dave doing almost all the driving (on the quiet – he’s a bit of a lead foot ;-)

With so many pictures having been taken, it’s going to be tough to decide which images to put on this blog!!! So, if you want to see more pictures, check out my online photo album.

So – without further ado……. I give you………

MEL AND DAVE’S 2008/2009 ROAD TRIP

28 December 2008 (Sunday)
We had a fairly late start, using the morning and early afternoon to finish packing the car and settling last minute items (Stefan, our flatmate, was feeding the cats). With me in the driver seat, we set off from Thames for Lake Waikare – where the map noted a “Bird Sanctuary”. We took the “wetland management refuge” scenic detour before arriving at the lake. The lake was small and it took us no time to drive around it. We attempted to find the bird sanctuary, but all the roads we tried ended at farms. We finally concluded that the bird sanctuary was less of a “come see the birds” site and more of a “don’t shoot the birds in this area” site. It was obvious this lake was popular for hunting, as bird blinds could be seen out into the lake far from the shore bushes. Ha ha ha, at first I thought they were mangrove trees!!!! Mangroves are a saltwater bush Melanie!!!!

Since checking out the lake took far less time than we had anticipated (we missed a nice wetland walk and couldn’t find any tracks around the lake), we decided to head straight for Port Waikato. Dave drove us to the west coast town; while it was an uneventful drive, it was very scenic. Upon arriving in the town, I was surprised it was bordered by such steep hills. Of course, these small mountains would explain why there was no road leaving the town – the town was basically a dead end from the “main road”. North of the town, the neverending beach actually gave way to the mouth of the Waikato River (which comes from Lake Taupo in the interior).

Where the town and the ocean met, a beautiful black sand beach stretched between the horizon, on the northern end, and a rocky terminus of a steep hill, on the southern end. Our first glimpse of “Sunset Beach” – from a raised lookout platform – showed us how differently everyone used the beach. My gaze was drawn first to the horses walking on the beach. I watched as they occasionally trotted and splashed in the surf before calming down to a beach walk. Turning my eye up to the flat, rockless northern section, I found people travelling in ATVs and sail buggies. Of course, there were many people enjoying the water too – swimming, body bording, wading, and a little bit of boating. I found that the stiff breeze cooled the hot sun enough that I had no desire to jump into the chilly ocean.

We had arrived at low tide, which exposed many mussel and barnacle encrusted rocks of various strange formations. Occasionally a star fish or two (or 7 even!) could be seen huddled in the cooler, wetter crevices of the rocks – waiting for the tide to come back in to continue their smorgasbord of “oysters on the half shell”. A white faced heron, however, was enjoying the low tide feast. If it wasn’t wading in the waters around half-exposed rocks, it was perching on the rocks. Dave snapped a photo at the perfect time; catching the heron taking off from its rock.


Having wondered around the beach a bit, we decided we best find a place to sleep before receptions started closing. We ended up staying at a very nice “Top 10 Holiday Park”. We were given a piece of lawn with a hedge dividing us from the more crowded camping area. If the hedge didn’t stop the noise of the crowd, it did stop the view. The grass was so soft and well maintained that we didn’t mind not having air mattresses!!! (It would turn out to be the best campsite lawn in our trip – absolute luxury). We used the parks BBQ for dinner and then decided to walk back down to the beach for sunset. We arrived just in time for the beginning of a long and beautiful display.

29 December 2008 (Monday)
Though we had a good night’s sleep, we woke up to drizzly weather. We made dashes to the bathroom and ate our traditional breakfast in the car (muesli soaked overnight in milk or water). With a break in the drizzle, we packed up the tent and set off for the day – throughout which I would continue to exclaim upon my surprise of forgetting to pack my raincoat (which I had set out with all my other clothes, but had forgotten to put in the car!). Of course, this raincoat lament would prove to be much used for the next week of our travels!

We left Port Waikato and met up with the “main road” and turned south, to follow the coast. Well, as we could see from the map, the “main road” doesn’t actually follow the coast – it’s actually a gravel inland road – but it does give beautiful views over mountainous green landscapes specked with intense rock formations. I believe I drove at the beginning of the day, allowing Dave to enjoy the scenic landscapes his country had to over. At one time, I stopped on the side of the road to take pictures of one amazing valley. Could this have been the LOTR (Lord of the Rings) filming location marked on the map (minus the sheep of course)?

Sometime after Limestone Downs, Dave took over driving and I took over navigating. Unfortunately, my roadmap, though fairly detailed, doesn’t have road names for the back roads. Pretty soon we were just randomly driving gravel roads! Not that it wasn’t fun; it just made it hard to figure out where on the map we were. The towns Dave knows we went through before arriving at the “large” town of Ngaruawahia were: Kaawa, Naike, Waingaro, and Glen Massey. The drizzly misty weather had followed us through all the back roads, but just before arriving in Ngaruawahia it stopped.

We took advantage of the lull in weather and walked up a “rail to trail” track in the Hakarimata scenic reserve. It was a track that could have gone for 8 hours, ending quite a ways from our car (at Parker Road, where the trail actually “begins”, with a short kauri loop walk! – we didn’t know that at the time!). Obviously we weren’t up for a 16 hour return trip – it was rainy and we had a New Year’s Eve deadline. So, we just went for a nice “stretch of the legs”. We checked out a small waterfall and then did a bit of uphill – just for the lungs. Dave pushed me a little further when I was getting tired (all my café food and lack of hiking had taken its toll!) and we came to a cool tree that appeared to have another tree growing off of it. It’s hard to explain (or see in the picture), but the thick “trunk” I am holding onto is actually part of the same “vine” plant that is crawling up the “host” tree. I never would have believed the scrawny little vine could turn into this massive tree like plant, but it was indisputable when we saw the vine itself coming off the massive trunk. Very interesting (eve it boring to read ;-)

The drizzle started again just as we were returning back to the car. Nice timing! We drove into Ngaruawahia and mailed my dad’s birthday present (I am glad to say that it did make it to him in time for his birthday!). We had nice paved road and rainy weather from Ngaruawahia through Whatawhata and into Raglan. Raglan is a big surf town. I had wanted to check it out for several months (since not being able to visit over a long weekend that Dave had to work) so I was excited to see the town. Unfortunately, the rain had gone from drizzle to definite, consistent rain. Maybe if I had had my rain jacket I would have enjoyed walking the main town. As it was, we just drove around, seeing the housing area and the beautiful views and inlets everywhere. The town was far larger than I expected.

So, instead of killing time in Raglan we again headed south. This time the gravel roads did follow the coast, offering amazing views over the ocean and back towards Raglan. We took advantage of the minor let up in precipitation and stopped at a lookout. It was quite impressive – being at the top of a horseshoe shaped bluff. There was a stiff wind coming over the bluff; from the looks of the trees in the area, the wind was pretty consistent throughout the year. Dave was the fist to spot the car lying at the bottom of the lookout. It appeared to have been there for a while – ferns growing out of the broken windshield.

Dave continued driving the muddy, gravely roads back to Te Mata where we followed more gravely (but less muddy) roads to Bridal Veil Falls. It was a short walk to the top of the falls, but a lot of stairs to the bottom!

We continued down the gravel road to the little fishing town of Kawhia. We drove past a couple of the crowded holiday parks as we drove to “Ocean Beach”, which is apparently a spot of geothermal activity - as we could see that people were using shovels to dig their own private “hot pool” in the low tide sands.

We decided that the Kawhia parks were too crowded for our tastes, and decided to check out the “tent symbol” on our map. It looked to be in the middle of now where – at an intersection of two roads. When we got to the intersection, we found a store/café with some signs about accommodation. We weren’t really sure if this was the place, so we went in and asked if they could tell us where “this camp site was” while pointing to the little blue tent symbol on the map. “That’s us”, the girl said with a laugh. She went and got her dad – Bill, the owner – and we asked about camping. He told us where we could set up and I asked how much. He said no charge! Of course there were the “are you sure” and the “thanks so much”. Then there was the “we best set up before it starts to rain again”. He then told us that if we wanted a metal roof over our heads he’d be happy to help. Both Dave and I were uncertain, as we really liked the idea of free at the moment. But as we stood outside talking about it, and the rain began falling harder, he convinced us it would be better than getting all our gear wet. So, he met us at the house next to the shop and showed told us to make ourselves comfortable. We talked to Bill for a bit (neither Dave nor I knowing how to ask again about cost) then he mentioned that, despite having taken no rent in 6 months, the house had had occupants almost every night! Well, that answered our question – the guy was just a good bloke that preferred his empty house get used than have wet campers!!! It was a really neat surprise.

So, instead of buying a cheap breakfast for thanking the “Oparau Roadhouse” for their free camping, we headed over for a good dinner before closing. Dave had delicious fish and chips, while I had a chicken and brie burger. I was thoroughly impressed with the hunk of brie they had put on my order – I could actually taste the cheese (a lot of places just put a sliver of the cheese on their burgers, so they can say they put it on, but you can’t actually taste it). Dave and I enjoyed having a house with electricity and looked at our pictures on the laptop before heading to bed. We both commented that the bed was a bit soft, but slept well.