Now, I don't know how precise it is, but google tells me we did 1,016km. That's 631 miles for you imperial-heads. That's equivilant of travelling from Manchester to Ahlen in Germany. That's just 40 miles more than driving from John o'Groats to Cardiff. It's quite far, ok, get it? We did it all over 3 days.
We drove through the countryside (which Sarah said looked like Wales), through forests (which Sarah said looked like a rainforest), along the coast and on dirt tracks to get to beaches. Sarah was right, it did look like we were in Wales and the Amazon at times. It was pretty cool when we were driving though the countryside and spotted the sand dunes off in the distance. I ain't ever seen that before. Those sand dunes gave Formby a run for it's money.
We agreed to meet at the car rental place just before 9 on the Friday morning. As both me and Sarah suffer from chronic tardiness we both knew this meant anytime before 9:15. Well, we both shocked ourselves by turning up by 9 and our speedy getaway was only slowed down by the guy who took forever sorting our rental out. We were happy to discover that our rental was a yellow Honda Fit. We named him Hamish and he was quite a cutie. Sarah even wore a coordinating top, it made Hamish happy. Well, I imagined it would have done if cars had thoughts and feelings.
Hamish's song was definitely Black and Yellow by Whiz Khalifa. A song which featured on the mix CD I made for the journey. We so ghetto.
It took me a moment to get used to driving Hamish. After 3 months of cruising round in a Ford Territory (which has no name), I felt like I was back in my little Polo (RIP Nora). It was like sitting on the floor, and seriously, where was the cruise control? We kept the tunes blaring as we took a little detour to try and find One Tree Point. We ended up at an oil refinery. True story.
We left the highway to check out Whangerei. You probably read that place name with a 'Wha' sound at the beginning. Wrong. Try again. It actually is pronounced with an 'F' sound at the beginning. Now I know nothing about linguistics so I hope I explained that correctly. Anyway, I don't know if we were in the wrong part of town but there isn't much in Fongarray (again, no expert with them phonetics). There is a restaurant called Killer Prawn though.
We spent a long time in this second hand book shop. We get drawn into second hand book shops quite easily, they're the only place in New Zealand where you can buy a decent book without having to sell every limb and your firstborn. Sarah browsed the books that would actually be read while I looked at the pretty old books, looking for ones with inscriptions. I can only assume my fascination with these stems from watching Definitely, Maybe a few too many times. We both know I watched it for Ryan Reynolds, not the story line. After the purchase of a book, we went on the hunt for food. As we were running out of time we ate our lunch in the car. For those interested, lunch was from Subway not Killer Prawn.
Back on the road, we continued our journey to get to the Bay of Islands. We decided to check out the Lonely Planet to see if there was anything worth seeing on the way to Paihia. And there was. What we found was some pretty famous bogs created by Friedensreich Hundertwasser.
Kawakawa is also famous for it's train line which runs through the middle of town. And as we were heading back to the car a train passed through, right by where we'd parked the car. Kawakawa is the perfect place to stop for a toilet break as you get to see those famous loos. Between the stalls there are bottles in the wall, so you can totally watch people on the loo, if you're into that kind of thing.
As we approached Paihia we were in awe of the sea. I guess coming from a landlocked town that seeing the sea is a pretty big deal. We rocked up to Paihia, checked into our hostel and went to explore the town. It was a nice little place but not much to do unless you wanna fork out a load of cash to get out to sea. We ended up at a bar chatting with some fellow Brits. Like you do, because obviously we came ALL the way to New Zealand to talk to fellow Englishmen.
We agreed to meet at the car rental place just before 9 on the Friday morning. As both me and Sarah suffer from chronic tardiness we both knew this meant anytime before 9:15. Well, we both shocked ourselves by turning up by 9 and our speedy getaway was only slowed down by the guy who took forever sorting our rental out. We were happy to discover that our rental was a yellow Honda Fit. We named him Hamish and he was quite a cutie. Sarah even wore a coordinating top, it made Hamish happy. Well, I imagined it would have done if cars had thoughts and feelings.
Hamish's song was definitely Black and Yellow by Whiz Khalifa. A song which featured on the mix CD I made for the journey. We so ghetto.
It took me a moment to get used to driving Hamish. After 3 months of cruising round in a Ford Territory (which has no name), I felt like I was back in my little Polo (RIP Nora). It was like sitting on the floor, and seriously, where was the cruise control? We kept the tunes blaring as we took a little detour to try and find One Tree Point. We ended up at an oil refinery. True story.
We left the highway to check out Whangerei. You probably read that place name with a 'Wha' sound at the beginning. Wrong. Try again. It actually is pronounced with an 'F' sound at the beginning. Now I know nothing about linguistics so I hope I explained that correctly. Anyway, I don't know if we were in the wrong part of town but there isn't much in Fongarray (again, no expert with them phonetics). There is a restaurant called Killer Prawn though.
We spent a long time in this second hand book shop. We get drawn into second hand book shops quite easily, they're the only place in New Zealand where you can buy a decent book without having to sell every limb and your firstborn. Sarah browsed the books that would actually be read while I looked at the pretty old books, looking for ones with inscriptions. I can only assume my fascination with these stems from watching Definitely, Maybe a few too many times. We both know I watched it for Ryan Reynolds, not the story line. After the purchase of a book, we went on the hunt for food. As we were running out of time we ate our lunch in the car. For those interested, lunch was from Subway not Killer Prawn.
Back on the road, we continued our journey to get to the Bay of Islands. We decided to check out the Lonely Planet to see if there was anything worth seeing on the way to Paihia. And there was. What we found was some pretty famous bogs created by Friedensreich Hundertwasser.
Kawakawa is also famous for it's train line which runs through the middle of town. And as we were heading back to the car a train passed through, right by where we'd parked the car. Kawakawa is the perfect place to stop for a toilet break as you get to see those famous loos. Between the stalls there are bottles in the wall, so you can totally watch people on the loo, if you're into that kind of thing.
As we approached Paihia we were in awe of the sea. I guess coming from a landlocked town that seeing the sea is a pretty big deal. We rocked up to Paihia, checked into our hostel and went to explore the town. It was a nice little place but not much to do unless you wanna fork out a load of cash to get out to sea. We ended up at a bar chatting with some fellow Brits. Like you do, because obviously we came ALL the way to New Zealand to talk to fellow Englishmen.
Stay tuned for part two. And possibly three. I'm not making any promises.
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