First Day

It’s just after 7pm here and I’m utterly exhausted. Probably because it is 12:11am back at home and I didn’t get much sleep on the plane. I mean, it’s a little difficult to get quality sleep when you’re basically sitting up and there’s heavy turbulence. Though, overall my flight was really quite pleasant. The flight attendants were all very nice and there wasn’t anyone sitting beside me so there was a little bit of breathing room.

Speaking of people being nice, it’s held true so far that everyone I’ve run into has been very nice and helpful. The car rental was a breeze. I had help at the supermarket when picking up a prepaid card for my mobile phone from the cashier and the woman in line behind me. Oh, and customs officer amused me because he was this big, burly guy that never said a word or barely even glanced at me while he was checking my paperwork and passport. Then when he handed all documents back to me, he gave me a big wink but never cracked a smile.

So, driving on the left side of the road really has been a lot easier than I thought or worried it would be. Only took me about an hour to get used to it and after that it was really just little things, like remembering to head to the right side of the car to get back in. My biggest issue right now is trying to get used to the turn signal, which is on the right side of the steering wheel, instead of the left like it is on mine.

Driving out of South Auckland was relatively easy. I went the wrong direction twice but quickly got turned back the right way. Anna at the Apex Car Rental place gave me a bunch of maps and showed me the way I wanted to go to get to Coromandel Peninsula. It was all very straight forward, so I’m glad that I didn’t bother with the GPS.

Now, how do I describe the drive to Coromandel Town and then Whitianga? I’m not sure I’m really up to it because I’m so tired, but let me just say that it was absolutely spectacular. Such beauty, I’m not sure that in all my travels I’ve seen anything like it. I read in my guide book that New Zealand is sometimes called “Godzone” which comes from some guy (not looking it up now) calling NZ God’s own country. Well, I’ve only been here one day and only seen a very small part but I can already completely understand where that comes from. After going over my pictures, I’m a little disappointed in how most of them turned out. I’m going to need to take a little more time with them to make sure the colour balance, white balance or whatever is better. Many of them are washed out. Ugh. Still, they barely show how beautiful the roadsides are. I stopped so much to take pictures that I think I added an extra hour or 1.5 hours to my drive. Probably more. The verdant vibrancy of the landscape… breathtaking. Often, I would be saying to myself “You’ve got to be kidding me” because sometimes I couldn’t believe how fantastic or even just how green the landscape was. This usually came after I had just stopped on the side of the road for some pictures and had just driven around the bend and an even more spectacular view presented itself, but of course, no place to stop.

Oh, yes.. I should mention how incredibly winding the roads were. My cross country drive 3 years ago was training for this drive. Yes, Mom.. it was worse than Mesa Verde. At least there weren’t a lot of cars on the road, most of the time, so I could go at my own speed. I drove 60km or slower and couldn’t quite see how in some of these places 100km was allowed… and that people were driving it. Nope, not me, thanks.

So, it’s time to start condensing because I can blather.. and I’m getting increasingly tired. Coromandel Town is where I stopped for lunch. There wasn’t much there but lunch was fantastic. I had a grilled lamb salad with sultana (can’t remember what that is it was so tasty) and red wine vinaigrette. I got some kind of juice that I still don’t know what it was called but it was pretty thick and tart.. delicious, really. The server let me try it first. After lunch at the Success Café, I walked around a little, bought some postcards… even sent one and then was on about my way. From Coromandel to Whitianga was even more winding but some wonderful scenic vistas. Actually, this was my favourite part of the drive. Until then, most of the Coromandel Peninsula hugged the coast. To Whitianga, it drove mostly through rolling hills… and I know some people are drawn to water but I love the hills and fields. Though, there was one section of beautiful beach where I stopped and spent about a half an hour in the sun and took loads of pictures.

Whitianga itself isn’t much to write home about, especially after the sun goes down. I’m staying at a hostel, On the Beach Backpackers Lodge. I have a tiny, single room and the bathroom is out through the main room lounge. Since it was only $35 NZ, I can’t really complain. It’s a little stuffy, though. I ate dinner at the Carvery and had a small plate of roast chicken. The meat was carved for you and then you served yourself to the sides. Prettty standard fair. The food along with the cider was $20.50 NZ. So, lunch and dinner cost about the same.
So, at some point I need to calculate how long the drive took because Google Maps said it should take about 2.5 – 3 hrs but it took quite a bit longer than that. Granted, I stopped quite a bit and it was really winding, but thinking ahead, it’s probably a good idea I don’t have much more than 3 hrs to drive each day.

Okay, I think I’m done. Going to try to figure out how to get onto the internet as I write this offline. Had to prepay to use the wifi. So, if you read this, I got online!

Ps. The stars.. wow! :D