North Island Impressions

Much of the area north of Auckland, which is by far the smallest part of New Zealand, is rolling hills, scenic shoreline areas and lots of agricultural fields. We've seen some logged-over clearcuts, just like in BC, although the regrowth is a bit different, being made up of giant ferns and other plants not seen in Canada.

There are long stretches of uninspiring scenery (mostly inland) and then stretches of shoreline with great views and beautiful beaches.

Travel is generally slow and most of the roads we've been on are very winding and quite narrow. Not, perhaps, as narrow as some we were on some years ago in Scotland, but pretty narrow considering the traffic on them. After driving on NZ roads for a week or so, I've decided that their roads are really quite rough. With the rough surface and winding nature of the roads, a full day of driving tends to make one pretty tired. We have had one "easy" stretch of highway, and that was most of the 300-odd km from Napier/Hastings south to Wellington. Except for a 13-km section of steep, mountainous, narrow and winding road through a range of hills, most of the road was more or less straight, adequate width (ie: to a modern standard), mostly with shoulders and quite smooth.

The winding road south from Kaitaia (about an hour south from Cape Reinga), following the west side of the island, is much nicer. There are many hills, much winding road and fields of livestock, but the whole area is just greener and more pleasant. Most of this is called the Awaroa Road and is quite a bit more attractive than the more easterly road, the SH1 (state highway 1).

Lots of the west side of the north island seems to have long stretches of sandy beaches. One long stretch is called, somewhat inaccurately, 90-mile beach. It might have been 90 kilometers, but I quibble..... It's a Loooooooong piece of beach no matter what the measuring system. Part of this would be the result of persistent pounding from the Tasman Sea. Apparently a good deal of the sand came from volcanic eruptions. In any case, there are huge sand dunes, some the size of minor mountains and miles of beautiful beaches made of impeccable sand.

We've been somewhat surprised at the shortage of water in many places. A number of campgrounds have had NO water at all, some just no potable water that they recommended boiling first. We can't say that we've noticed this shortage justifying a lower campground fee...... We've started making sure our water tank and other storage devices are filled with water whenever we do get the chance.

Internet access is becoming a favourite bugbear of mine. So much so, I’m dedicating a single blog post to the topic.

Foodies amongst the readers will be interested to know that diary products, despite NZ having a reputation in this "field", are more expensive than in Canada. Cheese and milk in particular. I have also been confused by the fat content of milk. I'm a person who drinks powdered skim all the time so I'm making a big concession on this trip and trying to drink just plain skim milk. Just try finding "that" information on the milk containers here. There is "standard", "slim" and "extra slim" but what those terms refer to, numerically, is anyone's guess. I'm sticking with "slim" since that's the body style I think I'd be most comfortable with. I’m guessing that’s 1%, but so far I’ve been unable to confirm that.

Chocolate milk, which we are buying because Catherine doesn't really like milk and this is one way to encourage her to drink the stuff, is advertised as being 98.5% fat free which I take to mean it's 1.5% fat. Finally, some information I can work with!

Finally, still on the topic of milk, I saw in the "Pack 'N Save" yesterday milk I hadn't seen before: bananna milk, lime milk and strawberry milk, as well as chocolate. If my taste buds get jaded on this trip, I might try those varieties.

Gasoline (petrol) is surprisingly not all that bad. I had expected worse. Also interestingly, the price has been almost the same all over the country. The "normal" price seems to be $1.659/litre. With the currency exchange in Canada's favour.....

If you want to kick your Coke habit, this is the place to come. I saw a flat of 24 cans of Coke selling for about $19.00. That’s more expensive than beer!!