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!!

NZ Internet - Definitely NOT Up To Speed

We're used to easy access to free or nearly free Internet in Canada and the USA. At home, we have always-on, 24/7, "high speed" virtually unlimited access for about $1 a day and a few pennies. Since telecom companies can charge that and still make money, I'm assuming that providing Internet access like that must cost a lot less, given the way telecom companies operate.

Almost all libraries in Canada and the USA offer free Internet. Most hotels and motels just offer free access (including WiFi) as part of the collection of amenities available. Kind of like hot water, TV, a bed...... Safeway food stores in some parts of Canada (ie: Nelson, BC), at least the ones with Starbucks or whatever coffee purveyor they have, offer free WiFi. I can stand outside most Staples, Office Depot and Best Buy stores and pick up a signal. We live in a small town of about 1000 people and there are, by a rough count, at least 4 places where a person with a laptop can pick up a signal. That includes the local bar/hotel where you can catch up on your e-mail, book a hotel, check ferry connections or do your social networking, all while having a pint of a local brew.

In NZ, there is almost nothing, by comparison. Very few libraries offer free Internet access and even fewer have WiFi access. The main city library in Auckland did have free wireless, but it was, like the library in Devonport, just across the harbour from Auckland, slow to the pont of unusability. You "can" buy access, but being spoiled the way I am, I've been resisting this option. Frankly, I'm not prepared to pay up to $10/hour for access, no matter whose currency that amount is in. Further south, in Greytown, an organization called the APN (Aotearoa People's Network) is working to get free Internet access to libraries. They are making progress, but apparently they have a long way to go. I was able to use the same network at the library in Westport, out on the West Coast.

I need to find out from a local what home Internet costs; perhaps telecommunications costs significantly more here than in North America. We have seen fewer people with cell phones, so perhaps that's the reason. It's difficult to see how people would use the Internet to do business, communicate and do research if it costs so much. Is this caused by a lack of competition in the ISP field or has the wireless "craze" just not hit here yet? I have to say I've seen few if any of the small computers similar to what I'm carrying on this trip.

Wellington - NZ Capital City

About 450,000 people live in the greater Wellington area, but the downtown core is so crowded and space is at such a premium that only about 150,000 people actually live there. Most live north of the city in some extended suburbs with names like Lower Hutt and Upper Hutt.

In at least some ways, it’s a typical hilly (very hilly) old port town. Narrow, winding streets, buildings crowded together in a very limited space.

In addition to being a port city, of course, Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand, so it has all the infrastructure of government there as well.

The city has a very nice Botanical gardens, the city seemed clean and tidy, and it’s busy building better transportation lines to move traffic in and out of the city more efficiently. The “motorway” near the city seemed very new and some parts were still being worked on. One can only imagine the traffic problems before the motorway was completed.

We walked around a bit, went around the Parliament Buildings (one part being a building they call The Beehive – gotta be the hive of activity generated by all those civil servants), saw the old Dominion Observatory overlooking the city and enjoyed the flowers and trees in the Botanical Gardens.

Wellington has a reputation of being a very windy town. For us, it was windy and cool one day and sunny, calm and warm the second day while we were waiting for the ferry. The wind does whistle through the Cook Strait, that body of water separating the two islands.

No Remembrance Day Here....

Just a quick update....

It's Nov 12 (Nov 11 back in North America) and Remembrance Day came and went here, seemingly without notice. I guess it's not a date observed here.

We're just passing through Greytown which is about 80 km north of Wellington. We stopped here mostly because Catherine wanted to look for a particular shop (chocolate, would you believe??) and so she's out looking for it. I took the wee computer and went looking for likely prospects for Internet connections and immediately found one at the town Library. Let's hear it for Libraries!! Actually, this wireless connection is provided courtesy of some area "people's network". All I can say is NZ needs WAY more of this.

I'm getting caught up on bills, e-mail, blogs and picture uploading.

We'll be in Wellington today, probably later this afternoon, and likely will sail to the South Island tomorrow - I think that's Friday, although I've somewhat lost track of what day of the week it is. Not that it really matters!!

The South Island is supposed to be WAY different and we're anticipating some stellar scenery. The North Island has had some superb beaches and seacoast, but more about that later on.

New Zealand - Heading South, slowly....

On Saturday, Nov 7th, we got up to a beautiful morning - cool, calm, some morning fog to burn off and the town of Rowene looking very pleasant. We walked around the town for awhile, took a boardwalk through a mangrove swamp and checked out the local Saturday market. This a very attractive looking area with nice green hills and valleys. A sky full of blue also helped.

We followed Rte 12 south through the twin towns of Opononi and Omapere and on to an exceptionally twisty road through the Waipoua Forest, home to some very large Kauri trees. These trees aren't all that tall, by BC standards, but they sure are thick. The old one we saw, listed as being about 2000 years of age, was about 13 meters in circumference, pretty much from base to the top where the branches started sprouting out. Not sure how the average chainsaw would handle one of these.

The town of Dargaville was a good find because Catherine noticed an i-Centre as we rolled into town and decided to find out where Internet might be available. It just happened that the operator of the i-Centre was just getting the wireless set up and her tech guy had just walked in the door. We had a lunch and by then everything was ready. The wireless was fast and nearly free. The attached shop sold various wood products, and although very nice, they were pretty much out of our price range.

We continued on down the coast, ending up just past Helensville at Shelly Beach where we found a campground - no potable water at this one either. Pretty cheap, though, as campgrounds go (NZ$20).

We picked a Sunday morning to go back through Auckland. The North Island is quite narrow at this point and you must go through the city, or at least part of it, to get anyfurther south. We took the opportunity to drop by the rental agency to extend our vana rental by 3 days. We'll now be dropping it off just a few hours before our flight home leaves Auckland.

South of Auckland by about 90 minutes is the city of Hamilton. One of its notable attractions is the Botanical Gardens. We had a nice, sunny, warm few hours to wander around the gardens and took lots of pictures. Some plants were familiar but many were not. Where there were plant labels, we often did not even recognize the plant families listed.

The night of the start of our second week in NZ was spent in Cambridge, a short drive from Hamilton and another place (of only a very few we've seen so far) with a pronouncable name. Our weather continues to be quite nice although somewhat cool at times. We haven't had any truly miserable weather yet. It's been fairly windy, but to people who have lived on the prairies, nothing too unusual. We seem to get some sun and some heat, each day. Generally the cool weather has made for quite pleasant traveling.

Monday, Nov 9th - from Cambridge to Rotorua, which seems to have a reputation as being kind of New Zealand's answer to Yellowstone in the USA. Personally, I didn't see much here to interest me. We walked around but all I saw were a few steam vents, some bubbling mud pools and some hot water ponds. It's a town of about 75,000 people and it was probably as interesting walking up and down the streets as anything else. I would have been happy to spend less time there.

Since we were already over on the east coast, almost, we decided to travel out around the East Cape, from the Bay of Plenty around the coast to the east and then south to Gisborne and then Napier and Hastings. We've read that this area is very quiet, very scenic and not so touristy as some areas (like Rotorua?). Sounds like an area we'd like. We found a quiet motorhome camp near the small village of Opape. It didn't give the appearance of being very nice (quite a few old trailers and old vehicles around), but it's clean, very quiet and we are the only people staying here tonight. We're also about 100 feet from another of New Zealand's extensive beaches.

Tuesday, Nov 10th - spent the day traveling the East Coast highway, heading more easterly in NZ. Around lunch time, we arrived at East Cape which is the most easterly point in New Zealand. Sunrise arrives here each day before anywhere else in the world. There was a short hike up to a lighthouse with a nice view of the Pacific and an offshore island where the lighthouse was in years past. Stayed at a campground near Tolaga Bay, site of NZ's longest wharf, even if it is slowly falling apart!

Spent Nov 11th driving to Gisborne and then on to Napier. The drive south was exceptionally tortuous, windy and rough. NZ is a hilly place, but their roads do seem to wind around and up and over everything in the way. Makes for slow and tiring travel. Captain James Cook landed in these areas back in the 1700s and there are numerous memorials and the like. Napier has a good collection of Art Deco buildings so we did a short walk around the downtown to see some of these. This was done during a series of intermittent showers and wind. About the only unpleasant weather we've had so far. Tomorrow we're off to Wellington. It will be interesting to see how long this this drive takes. It's only about 350 km....

New Zealand - The First Few Days

Our second day in Auckland (Nov 2nd) is mostly done and our feet are tired again.

The hike around Devonport was really quite nice - lots of shops, a chance to try some Kiwi beer (Speights is nice) and finally, around 2 pm, a lunch of pulled pork and very excellent fries. We finally found a real grocery store and were able to satisfy our curiosity about some prices here. I think, basically, prices here for many things are somewhat like Canada's or a bit more. Some things are a lot more. The currency rate does give us a bit of a break.

We hiked to the top of two little hills in Devonport, both extinct volcanoes, and both of which had been used as gun stations in years past and which are now developed into public parks. Although the guide book describes the views from each as "spectacular", I think that's bit of hyperbole, at least to us. The views were nice, they were certainly panoramic, but I don't think I'd describe them as "spectacular". However....not to quibble too much.

So far, I haven't found a free Internet connection that's been fast enough to be bothered using. Maybe it's just the distance between NZ and the rest of the world :-). I may have to give up and go to an Internet cafe and see if that's better.

The flowers and other plants in the yards we've walked by are most interesting and generally quite different from what we have back home. Lots of nice big blooms and good smells everywhere. I did see a New Zealand Goldfinch - colored quite differently from the North American kind and quite attractive.

We had part of an evening out with the son of one of Catherine's good friends in Saskatoon. He lives in Auckland and plays for the New Zealand Symphony. Supper at an Asian restaurant which was very crowded, very noisy (chaotic, even), but with excellent food. We ate far too much and "took the air" on Mt Evan, overlooking the city.

On Tuesday (Day 3), we picked up the camper van. This involved getting up earlier than our bodies really wanted to and taking the shuttle bus back to the airport and having the rental company pick us up. After the forms and an overview of the rig, we tentatively drove off down the street, Catherine navigating us to the nearest grocery store where we stocked up before heading north. Today merited an early stop and we finally, after some searching, located a campground and spent some time unpacking, organizing the small space in the camper and having a restorative snack. A walk on the beach, supper and some writing, and it's time to get ready for bed. We're both pretty tired, proof being Catherine falling asleep while I was driving. That's not unusual in itself, but for it to happen in a new country, while we're trying to get used to driving on the left, on narrow, winding roads.....

The next days, Nov 4 and 5, we used to travel further north, with Cape Reinga being the ultimate goal, the northern-most point in New Zealand, that you can get to by road, at least.

On Nov 6 (Friday), we finished the drive to Cape Reinga in about an hour from our campground, hiked around, lay about on a very nice beach for awhile, got cleaned up and decided to head south because it was too windy to be really pleasant. A drive of somewhat over 3 hours got us to Rawene, a small town of about 500 people on the west coast of the Island, where we finally found a campground with water. Water does seem to be an issue here. It's often not available or available in small quantities or it needs to be boiled to make it safe to drink. Some campgrounds we've been in didn't have any water at all.

Today, Nov 7th, is a glorious day - sunny, warm but not hot. We're off to explore.....

Auckland....

Although our flight to Auckland was booked through Air Canada, the actual flight was operated by Air New Zealand. I have to say that it was a rather pleasant flying experience, as much as 14 hours of sitting can be pleasant.

Flight crew were pleasant and helpful, and informative. Not something we always experience. We were served a supper and a breakfast. Both meals were very good and we were even given a glass or two of wine for supper, a nice touch, I thought. Small pillows, blankets and headsets were provided, as was an exensive number of movies. I mamaged to watch "The Time-Travellers Wife", "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and some of "The Last King of Scotland".

I did manage to get a bit of sleep, but trying to sleep sitting up doesn't work well for me and airplace seats are pretty uncomfortable no matter what you do. I spent several hours sanding at the back of the plane and pacing up and down the aisles, as well as peering out the windows. We were getting a nearly full moon shikning out over the Pacific Ocean and I also saw a few small islands along the way. We crossed the Equator at about 4 am (PST) and the International Date Line an hour or two later.

The plane must have had a great tail wind, because we were maintaining a ground speed of over 900 km/hr and got frm Vancouver to Auckland in just over 13 hours.

Arrival day, though, finds us rather tired, having been awake for how long - I haven't even bothered to add it up. Too long. We walked around some of the city's harbour and had a short nap. Several more hours of walking took us through a beautiful park, flower gardens, the Museum and back to our temporary cubicle in the hotel. A good night's sleep will help us be a bit friskier tomorrow.

Monday - Nov 2/09 - had a good night's sleep which made us feel pretty good. So far today, we've taken the ferry over to Devonport where we've spent the last several hours hiking around. It's a beautiful community, great gardens, interesting shops and, a nice surprise, used book stores, where we found a NZ birds and a NZ trees book. Weather has been mixed, but generally quite nice. Easy for us to say, coming from Canada!

Pictures have been uploaded from yesterday's hikes and are at: http://picasaweb.google.ca/dave.mcc51/NewZealand2009#

We're finding free Internet kind of hard to find, but the libraries seem to have it. We are getting oriented and a bit better organized, but I'm still having some trouble realizing that I'm actually in the South Pacific.