then friday morning we were supposed to get the car at 9, so i got up at 8 (and went and banged on barret and brian's doors to wake them up). i was not ready when sophie and ej wanted to leave at 8:30, so i just left my packing for when we got back with the car. we walked down to beach road, by the railway campus where most of the rental car places are, but after walking the length of it, we couldn't find ace, so we asked someone at another car place and it turns out it was on the other side of where we had turned. we found it eventually, and the lady said we could take it till monday at 4 pm, and then if we wanted to keep it until tuesday we could just call ahead.
ej had volunteered to do the auckland city driving (bc she lives in ny so is used to traffic), but since i was the one renting the car i drove it back from the office to ih (without incident). the car was automatic, as requested, and the whole dash was digital. speedometer, gas gauge, everything was in this big window in the center of the dash. it was a little strange but we got used to it quickly. back at ih we took turns going in to get our stuff and the boys, and i quickly finished packing. then we headed up route 1, which is a motorway until orewa, a suburb on the outskirts of auckland with this really long pretty beach i always admire while driving by. there route 1 turns into just a regular 2 lane road, and slightly past there, we encountered tons of traffic going north, so we were going about 20-30 km/hr (the speed limit is 100) for quite a long time. sophie ej and i had each burned mix cds to listen to (i actually made 2 bc i couldn't cut my music choices down to just one cds worth), and we were just driving with the windows open and it was fun. however after the first stop, the cd player (and radio) stopped working, and all we could get was a weird crackling from the speakers.
when i had last called the kitesurfing place about going thursday, the guy had said they were "going up to ruakaka for the kitesurfing championships" so i did a little google research and found out that it was the new zealand nationals, and that rurakaka was on our route (up the east coast, and down the west), so we found our way there. we first ended up at what looked like an oil refinery right on the coast (we later found out it is in fact nz's only oil refinery), and when we pulled up to the gate and asked the man where to find the kitesurfing competition, he pointed behind us and said "that looks like them right over there" so we turned and found the beach, where a few people were launching kites. we watched for a bit, but according to the mc (who was announcing from the back of a dumptruck), the wind was not strong enough, so we left to go find lunch, where everyone else got fish and chips, and i ate my pbj i had made at ih before leaving.
when we got back to the beach an hour later there was more activity, including a competition for the first person to ride 100m without stopping, the winner of which got a new kite bag. a few guys tried, and made some progress. the organizer of the competition's dog was chasing anyone who was up and riding, and messed up a few. the beach was really pretty, and there were people kiting on land boards (like skateboard with foot straps and big wheels) and kite trikes, and wakeboarding behind the rescue boat, but by 4 the mc announced that there wouldn't be any competitions for the day, and they would try again tomorrow.
we headed out, and continued up route 1 along the east coast. we stopped in whangarei
(pronounced FANG-uh-rye, because in maori they had a sound that we don't have in english that is sort of between "f" and "wh", so when the missionaries came they transcribed it as wh, but now the official governmental approved maori pronunciation says to say it "f", and the old sound has been more or less lost)
anyway, whangarei is the largest city north of auckland, and we stopped there at the 'i-site' (tourist info center) and got lots of brochures. sophie had booked a hostel for 3 of us for friday night, and one for all 5 of us sunday, but neither of them had taken a credit card number so we were considering just camping out/sleeping in the car for at least some of the nights to save money. however, since we had no tent or camping gear beyond sleeping bags, we decided not to try that, at least the first night. we tried a lot of hostels in whangarei, but they had no room, so we eventually decided to drive all the way up to the one sophie booked, which i think may have been the northern-most hostel in nz.
while driving, ej had just told me that she could use a bathroom, when we saw a sign for the famous hundertwasser toilets in kawakawa. i had read about some high tech musical toilets in her guide book, and we were really excited, but it turns out those are different famous toilets on the other side of the northland, and these particular ones were designed by a famous architect, and now the whole decor of the town centers around their public toilets. so we all used them, and the guys got drinks at the grocery store, and we continued on.
we stopped again in paihia, which is the main tourist town in the bay of islands, which a lot of people had told us was nice. we got water at the grocery store there, and the boys looked for food but decided everything was too expensive. we also ran into a group of american girls, 2 of who i had met on the kayaking trip last weekend, which was cool.
by then it was around 8, so we called the hostel (north wind lodge backpackers in henderson bay) to tell them we were still coming, and the lady said she had to stay until we got there so we tried to hurry. it was still 9:30 or 9:45 when we finally arrived (after an unpaved road for the last 10 min of the drive). the boys stayed in the car (since the reservation was for 3 of us, we weren't sure what the policy about extra people sleeping in the car in the parking lot was). us girls went in, and a really friendly older lady met us and asked us to take our shoes off, because the wood flooring had just been redone. she said she's just the mother-in-law there, and we felt bad for keeping her up late to check us in. she took us up to our room, which was huge and all ours, with one double bed and one single. the bathroom was attached to the room, and shared with another room similar to ours. there was also a full kitchen and lounge area and stuff. it was really nice and homey and it's too bad we didn't really have time to enjoy it.
we left my phone with the boys so we could text them, and got all our stuff, and started our nightly brochure reading. we decided to do a bus tour of the 90 mile beach and cape reinga (the absolute northern tip of nz), because the rental company specifically said not to drive on the beach with the car, and the lady at the hostel had told us the road to cape reinga is not paved and is quite dangerous. we found 2 tours that included both of those things as well as some kauri forest touring, sand tobogganing, and lunch. they were both booked for saturday, but the more expensive one ($65 vs $45) had room sunday for all 5 of us so we booked that. we also booked a hostel room for all 5 of us for saturday night in kaitaia, where the sunday tour left from. by the time the lady was gone for the night the boys didn't want to come in and use the bathroom or anything, so we just went to bed.
saturday morning we woke up and while i was out waking up the boys, a lady with a little girl came over to talk to us. she's the owner, and it turns out she's from about 3 minutes from where barret lives in calgery, alberta, canada. the weird thing was i didn't notice that she didn't have a kiwi accent while she was talking to us until she said she was from canada. her husband is from here, and he just became a canadian citizen, but they are hoping to move down here full time in the near future. i was quite nervous the whole time she was talking to us, because the boys weren't technically supposed to be there. the lady also took one look at brian and said 'you should put some sunscreen on you're going to burn like crazy as pale as you are' which was pretty funny.
i left the boys by the car, and went up and told the girls they had to sneak out, and i took their shoes to the bottom of the stairs for them so they could sneak out the back porch. i then went to ask the lady where we could go for breakfast because the boys were starving, having never really gotten dinner the night before (although brian had 6 slices of ej's loaf of bread with peanutbutter). when i went back to get my stuff the girls' shoes were gone, and when i got back to the car they said they said some lady (a guest, not the owner) talked to them and asked what they were doing jumping off the back of the porch and they were like 'oh just taking a walk'. so we got out of there before anyone asked any more questions about exactly how many of us there were.
we headed back south toward the bakery the owner told me would be open, even on easter saturday (the vast majority of businesses were closed for good friday, and then all of easter weekend), and in addition we were way up in the middle of nowhere. as we were turning off the dirt road we passed the mother in law, and were glad we had left before the two ladies discussed the three american girls versus the girl and 2 boys one of whom was from canada. we found the bakery, which had pies as promised (they have these little single serving pies with meat and cheese everywhere here). it was after 11 by then so we were all starving. i got a sausage roll, followed by a chocolate eclair, both of which were delicious.
then we decided to drive back toward the east, and just stop at a nice beach when we came to one. we also needed gas, but the first station we saw was 181c/liter, and near auckland it's only like 174, so we decided to wait till the next town. however the gas gauge was blinking by the next gas station, and it turned out the price there was 184, but we filled up anyway. we tried one beach by the gas station, but it was not very sandy, so we went on a little further.
we stopped at cable bay beach, which was pretty and cute, and fairly uncrowded. the sand was a cool pinkish seashell color, which it turns out is unique to that beach. we laid in the sun for awhile, and the boys boogie boarded with boards they had bought at the gas station. we explored the volcanic rocks that went out into the water, and played in the waves for awhile.
by mid afternoon we had had enough sun and after changing, we headed for kaitaia, back to the west again. the boys had fiddled with the fuse box, and the music was working again, which made the drive much more enjoyable. kaitaia turned out to be a fairly large town, with a ton of little shops on the main street, beginning with a huge kfc, which the boys were very excited about, and us girls were not at all. after finding our hostel (at the kaitaia hotel/pirates backpackers/nero bar), we strolled back down the main street so the boys could get their kfc. the town seemed kind of run down and i was not a big fan, although part of that might be because everything was closed for easter.
after kfc we went back and checked in, and our room had 2 sets of bunk beds, one with a double on the bottom. somehow sophie and i ended up sharing all the double beds this trip (because ej was sick with a cold so we didn't want to share with her, and the boys just straight up refused). we had our own bathroom "ensuite", which was actually kind of annoying because we all wanted to shower, and there was only 1, whereas if the bathroom had been down the hall there probably would have been many.
after we were all clean we decided since we had lots of time for the evening we would cook ourselves dinner in the hostel kitchen. so we went back down the street to the grocery store and got stuff to make tacos, and then came back and made them (delicious). after that we went back and hung out for awhile, and i hid the cadbury eggs we had gotten at the grocery store, and everyone found them. then we went to the bar attached to our hotel, which was empty, and the others got drinks but i didn't and we sat outside at a table on the sidewalk for awhile. the bartender told us there was live music at a bar down the street so eventually we wandered down there. the band was kind of pop-punky, and they did all cover songs, starting with justin timberlakes 'bringing sexy back' followed by some bob marley, and finishing up with 'what's my age again' by blink182. they weren't fabulous, but they were entertaining.
after they stopped playing ej was taking a picture of all of us, and this old, very drunk maori guy started talking to us, only we all had a lot of trouble understanding him due to the following reasons: a) his accent b) he was very drunk c) his false teeth, which somehow he accidentally spit out on the table while talking to us. after putting them back in he explained something about crayfish, brian (who for some reason could understand him better than the rest of us) said that's how he lost his teeth, fishing or something? he also hugged me and ej, and said to sophie 'you're so tiny, it's like you're from another planet'
so we were dying from not laughing at this crazy guy, and were trying to leave and he was like following us out, offering to let us stay at his flat and stuff (another lady there was laughing at him and shaking her head at us), and the guys like shook his hand and stuff, and barret was the last to leave and the guy like wouldn't let him go and someone else at the bar was like 'he wants you to touch noses with him' which is the maori greeting thing that you do while shaking hands, but barret did not know that and was really weirded out and it was hilarious.
as we were laughing hysterically about all of this and walking up the street to our hotel, we see this very jacked old guy wearing a green tank top carrying this giant cauldron down the street. we must have all been staring, because as he passed us he said "i've got a baby in here...i'm taking it home to eat for dinner" which caused us a whole new bout of laughter. we made it back and went to sleep after watching part of a movie on the one channel that came in on our tv in our room.
sunday morning we got up early so we could get to our tour by 9, and were all planning on having peanutbutter sandwiches with the end of ej's bread. i made myself a sandwich, and enjoyed it, but while making their own, the others discovered a lot of mold on the bread. i was very grossed out, but it was too late to do anything about it. we walked up the street to our tour, and our bus driver/tour guide was an older maori guy named dennis. our first stop was the ancient kauri kingdom place, which is basically a big gift shop with stuff made from 45,000 year old kauri trees, and a cafe and car wash. dennis told us we'd be coming back at the end of the day as well, so we didn't stay long.
our next stop was the gumdiggers park and buried kauri forest. the owner took us on a tour in the forest, which is mainly tea trees now. there are 2 kinds, i forgot one, and the other is manuka. the tea made from boiling the manuka leaves has all kinds of antibiotic properties, as does the honey made by bees who pollenate them. i've seen the manuka honey in gift shops and stuff, so that's pretty cool.
buried below the current forest are 2 entire kauri forests, which died due to large natural disasters, and were then covered by sand, which preserves the wood. the second forest is thought to have been killed by a giant tsunami from the tasman sea, caused by some sort of meteor or asteroid.
the kauri trees excrete this sap stuff, which hardens and forms kauri gum, which was once worth more than its weight in gold. we had heard this from various sources, but did not know WHY it was valuable or what it was used for. it turns out kauri gum is another name for amber, and was used in all kinds of varnishes and adhesives and stuff, until man-made products took over. a lot of yugoslavians/croatians (called dalmations?) came to dig for kauri gum in the buried forests and the term 'gumboots' was coined.
after that we had a long bus ride during which most of us fell asleep. we stopped once to see over this bay to the northernmost settlement in nz, only ej and i couldn't see anything ha ha. we kept driving north, and stopped for lunch at this cute little bay with a beach and campground. we got sandwiches and muffins, which were pretty good, probably because we were hungry. after that we drove a little further to the cape reinga parking lot, and then walked down the trail to the lighthouse at the very northern tip of nz. it was really pretty there, even though they're in the process of paving the road so there's a lot of construction. we ran into the same girls from the kayaking club again and took lots of pictures.
after cape reinga we drove back south, and into this sandy creekbed that the busses use as a roadway. we stopped to go sand tobogganing, which was less exciting than when i did it in australia, because we had these box shaped sleds that didn't go super fast, and also because i dragged my hands so i didn't go fast/flip over. after that we drove out onto the 90 mile beach, which is actually closer to 90 km (60 something miles). tons of tour buses drive on it (and lots of people in their cars), and dennis said it's actually considered a highway. we stopped and took lots of pictures and stuff, and then drove the length of the beach (more naptime). we stopped at the ancient kauri kingdom again on the way back so dennis could wash the bus off (the sand is very corrosive if left on cars).
after the tour we stopped and got chinese takeaway for our easter dinner, and ate it on some benches in kaitaia. then we drove down the west coast, and all the way around the hokianga bay rather than paying $14 for the ferry across it. this seemed like a good idea until we discovered we had to drive for probably 45 min on a windey gravel road. we made it though, and found our way to the openoni lodge backpackers which is on an organic farm (we had booked earlier in the day for all 5 of us). as we were arriving another hostel that we had booked (and had only had room for 3 of us) but not given a credit card number called me and i apologized for not calling but we had no reception in the mountains while driving so it really was impossible, and the lady yelled at me for quite awhile, wasting my expensive phone minutes. finally she hung up and i felt really bad, but if that's a problem they should just take a credit card number as a deposit.
brian was hungry yet again, but we had missed dinner at the hostel (which costs $20 anyway) so he bought some eggs and bread from the owners and made himself some dinner. ej and i finished off the chinese leftovers, and i ended up with a stomach ache, which may also have been from the moldy bread that morning. we just hung out in our room and gossiped about all the ih kids (we had a 5 person room again, with sophie and me in the double bed yet again) and eventually we fell asleep.
monday we just got up when we woke up, and started to make our way back to auckland. we stopped along the way to see tane mahuta, "lord of the forest," the tallest kauri tree in nz, estimated to be 2000 years old. the boys really wanted mcdonalds for breakfast, but we did not find any, even in the larger towns we dove through. we then decided we would probably make it back for ih lunch, so we wouldn't stop, but then we encountered lots of slow traffic as soon as we got anywhere near auckland, so we gave up and stopped to eat at a little mediterranean cafe. as we were leaving that town, we saw a mcdonalds :)
we dropped all our stuff at ih, then all drove down to the rental car place and walked back. i just sort of veged by my computer doing a little work and lots of nothing for the rest of the day.
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