Tēnā kōrua from New Zealand.....or "A Campervan Named Babette"

Yes.....that IS only one top we're wearing!

New Zealand......a couple of words for a few islands (not just two - don't forget Tasmania and smaller islands) that conjure up a number of images.  Things like adverts for slaughtered sheep children, or Anchor butter; things like an over-the-top dance at the beginning of a rugby match (the haka); things like small flightless birds that lend their name to the slang for New Zealanders....in fact many many things.  What most people don't realise, is that New Zealand is God's back-garden.





Yes, apparently from day 8 onwards, having created the rest of the world, he plucked these two big streaks of rock (yes, yes and the others too) out of the ocean and has worked on them ever since.  They are in one word:

Beautifulexquisiteawesomefantasticsurprisinglyheartrendinglyandemotionallyalmostdepravedintheirheavinliness.

Indeed, that is a new word and NO it is not Maori for "my country is better than your country".

The people?  They're like Aussies, just nicer....less arrogant! :)  The Maoris?  They're huge.....sometimes rotund, other times they look like man mountains, but in general, whether from fat or muscle, they're huge!

The only straight bit of road in NZ

So where do we start?  At the beginning of course, in Auckland.  For the un-initiated, that is about 2/3 of the way up (south to north) the North Island.  We've got 3 weeks and thousands of kilometres ahead of us and boy oh boy have we a lot to see and do.  By the end of this we'll be drained of adrenalin and ready to avoid driving for a couple of weeks in South America.  Which is nice.  Because that is where we are going next :)

We landed in Auckland on 26th March.  A Tuesday.  Diana Ross and Leonard Nimoy (Spock....like you needed telling you Trekkie!) celebrated their birthdays and we celebrated landing in NZ.  The airport was lovely, which is a euphemism for "we got off the plane, waltzed through passport control and had our bags inside a taxi within an hour".  Thank you Auckland Airport.






We were to spend a night in Auckland before picking up our home for the next 3 weeks.  A campervan.  Urgh....shudder.....images of driving in Europe in Summer.....all those bloody Dutch people and their caravans clogging up the roads....listening to them tell you "itsh really not zshat bad" and always, always thinking "you know, maybe it wouldn't be that bad....but I am not dragging a mobile toilet on wheels round Europe" etc etc.

The hotel was a hotel.  There was a bed, there was a restaurant.  We had a great meal and a fantastic night's sleep.  Staying with our friends and family for 3 weeks was great, but having your own "place" was also nice again.

Sexy Sunset Moments

NZ had already begun as it was to carry on - "nice".  I say this because it just IS.  The company we rented the campervan from had organised us a taxi to pick us up and the following morning we set off to collect Babette.  Of course, we didn't know her yet....she didn't have her name yet.....but she was there, waiting.  A quick tour from Marcel and she was ours.

What's that line from Austin Powers again?

The opening moments were tentative....we edged around each other.  She's 6.7m long and clearly I had never handled something that long .....or wide.  I pause now for the innuendo and sniggering to subside.

We stopped at a supermarket and bought enough to see us through the Apocalypse , then got on the road properly.  Which means, we headed off to the Bay of Islands.  Clue's in the name really....it's a bay.....it has islands.  Not much more to it.  Unless you count the opening gambit from a country that has so far blown us away.  The drive was like no other we had taken and we've driven a fair bit round the world.

Let's just agree here and now - every time we drive somewhere it will be beautiful.  It will be stunning, it will be beautifulexquisiteawesomefantasticsurprisinglyheartrendinglyandemotionallyalmostdepravedintheirheavinliness.

No photo showing NZ's beauty would be complete without me in it ;)

This is a fact of life, New Zealand and the next 3 weeks.

Now that is out of the way I can get on with letting you know that we spent the night here.  Our first night.  A strange thing that....your first night in a campervan.  Kind of like your first night with your new partner in your new home, the first you've shared.  Babette was already homely of course, Julia whirling around and installing us that evening whilst I cooked a meal.  Babette was warm, and cosy.  Babette was just lovely.



All that kind of tells the story.  Kind of.  Like "War and Peace is a long book" kind of tells the story.  Actually, Babette was parked in a campsite outside Pahia, on the shores of a lake, looking straight at a little waterfall and the sunset.  I was outside prepping dinner on our camp table and Julia was inside settling in.  We ate our dinner on the lakeshore, surrounded by ducks and geese, in the final rays of a sun that was setting behind a waterfall.  We miss our flat in Foley Street sometimes.  Not that time though.

Taste23 at the Falls

We woke in the morning and smiled at each other.....we liked our new home!  We had our first camp-site shower (not so bad) and ate breakfast a la Babette.  She has an in-house shower, but sometimes it's nice to stand under unlimited hot water :)

Head Shot anyone?

Julia had done some research (surprise...a German planning something!) and knew that we could do some sight-seeing by JetBoat.  I am not a sight-see-er on the whole, but throw a JetBoat into the mix and I am yours.  So we did it.  Wow.  Did I mention NZ is well fit?!  We saw the "Cathedral" and other wonders of the north NZ coastline, before zooming back to port.  I know it's a bit soppy, but we were looking forward to getting back into our home and driving off.  We had thought to drive straight back down to Auckland and continue south....but Werner Nerpel - Julia's beloved father - has always wanted to come to NZ and had raved about a certain beach, 90 Mile Beach, and Julia really wanted to show him the beach.  So we drove there.  After all......isn't that what campervan holidays are about?  Having a loose plan that you change on a whim.

This is imaginatively know as "the Hole in the Rock"......quite

A lonely island beach in the Bay of Islands

So we got back in the van and drove off for 150km.

Pulling my Cable out of Babette's back-side

HA!  B*llsh*t!  There is never a moment we just "get back in the van and drive off".  No my friends....oh no.  We might get back in Babette.  We might drive somewhere new and equally wonderful.  But we never just get back in the "van" and drive "off".  No....there is the 5 point check first:

1) Vents down (windows on top of campervan)
2) Gas bottle off
3) Power cable unplugged
4) Outside step is in
5) Bed and Drawers Locked (in position)

Plus....the co-pilot check.  Plus the "oh damn, I forgot to close the fridge door properly/turn off the battery/water-pump/etc etc".  In fact.....I'll write a post on all this driving malarky.

FACT: The trip to 90 Mile Beach proved one thing perfectly.  The Romans have never been to NZ.  Straight roads are anathema.  I think the idea is that if you build a straight road, people would go too fast and then they would miss all the beautiful scenery.  Which would be a crime.

For Caption see Photo

Clearly!

Babette pulled into the small area behind a dune for cars to park in and we wandered over the dune onto the beach.  Which is also a road........yes, the New Zealanders drive on their beaches!  The beach was stunning.  It was empty.  It was soooooo long.  We saw a bus and various cars drive up it.  There were barely any tourists, maybe they were somewhere else on the beach....it is 90 miles long after all!

Another 30 minutes later and we were parked up again and playing scrabble over a BBQ dinner of steak and sausage (Bierwurst, mein Freund!).  How VERY campervan ;o)

Wo ist mein Weiner?

So, in the words of Sid James...."Carry on Camping"

PS : In case you care - here's a great place to stare at some words and remember that Westernised Europe and Asia don't hold a monopoly on language:

100 Maori Words