Auckland to the Bay of Islands

New Zealand time is currently three hours later than Australian time (NZ has daylight saving time), so we actually slept until about 8:00 am today – I think that is the latest we slept since we arrived in Australia.

Had the “full” breakfast at our hotel, which was quite full. Ham (or maybe bacon – in this part of the world I’m not sure when I’m getting which), sausage, eggs, these triangular pieces of chopped, fried potato that I would call hash browns for lack of another term, a grilled tomato, toast and fruit, all laid out on a single plate without options. Good and definitely filling. At $12.50 NZ its about half the price of the hotel breakfasts we have had in Australia.

We pack up, load the car, and head out for our first real drive on the left hand side of the road. Every time we come to an intersection or have a choice to make I chant “stay left, stay left, stay left” and so far it seems to be working. I have learned to recognize the speed limit signs, but am still confused about the directional signs. They use big white signs with diagrams of the intersection, but the diagrams don’t seem to exactly match the streets themselves, so there must be some convention for interpreting them that I do not know. NZ does not allow left turns on red, but there is some more complex rule I don’t understand for intersections that means we wait a lot.

When I am driving over here and I say “sh%t” it means I have activated the windshield wiper rather than the turnsignal. Miriam is getting rather tired of hearing me say that.

Miriam’s walking shoes are giving her problems so we use the yellow pages to find a shoe store that caters to active folks. All the store names are different, and the yellow pages for Auckland generally lack the big advertising sections that tell more about the stores, so picking a store is a bit of a guess. We select “Shoe Science,” Miriam calls, and they say they have what we need.

We find our way there with only a few wrong turns and pullovers to read the map. It’s kind of a neat store with all kinds of running and walking shoes, and two long, store-length, black paths on the right side of the store. You take off your shoes and socks, walk down one of the paths and back, while the salesperson operates this computer controlled camera that films your feet as you walk. It apparently allows the store to detect walking problems that they can help correct. However, Miriam and I have normal feet, which means we are beyond help.

The salesperson brings out a pair of New Balance shoes, which are exactly what Miriam buys at home. But they are a good fit, and much more comfortable than what she has. They are also $250 NZ, but we gasp and buy them because we plan to do a lot of walking. They are also really cute.

We then drive from Auckland to the Bay of Islands, a distance of about 250 kilometers. It takes us until about 4:30, but we stop at a small park and at a small town for lunch.

The park is about 7 K off the road on a beach. Only two other cars are there and the ocean is beautiful, with rocky points or islands in the distance. The park also has these huge, gnarled trees with very rough bark and epiphyte ferns, that look like they were designed by J.R.R. Tolkien.

In the town we search for lunch. Most places sell fish and chips or pizza, and we are pretty tired of that. There is a Chinese restaurant the sign on which gives Chinese fooed and fish and chips equal billing, and we decide to pass on that. We end up at a combination bakery and food shop that has “the best pies in town” and hamburgers. We realize, after examining the display case, that “pies” are meat pies: steak and kidney, lamb and mint, curry chicken, etc. We go for the burgers.

The proper name of a “burger” is “hamburger” and there is no ham in it. So I don’t know why we should have had beefly expectations about the meat in these burgers that lack the word ham. Whatever the pink, grayish stuff was, it didn’t seem to be beef. I ordered the Hawaiian burger, than comes with a slice of pineapple, grated carrot and catsup. Miriam had the regular burger, that comes with a slice of beet, and had more trouble getting it down. This may be due to her habit of removing half the bun, which forces her to view the interior of the burger before she eats it. Some things are better left hidden.

We then drive the rest of the way to the Bay of Islands. The road is two-lane, with frequent passing lanes. It is quite curvy and heads mostly inland through beautiful, green country, occasionally passing close to the coast. I don’t see much of it because I am busy trying to stay on the road, and because I am busy chanting my mantra: “stay left, stay left, stay left.”

We arrive at the Bay of Islands a little after 4 pm, look around briefly at the town center, and find our way to Cap’n Bob’s Beach Front Backpacker.