Saturday, July 26, 2003

Driving on the left!!

Up at 7:30, showered, walked to Bargain and paid for and picked up my car. It's fairly easy getting used to driving on the left and side of the road, what's weird is everything in the car is backwards. I keep turning on the windshield wipers when I want to turn on the signal light (signal light switch is on the right hand side of the steering column!), and trying to get used to the idea that my rear-view mirror is on my left now. And I keep trying to enter my car at the wrong door.

Drove back to the hostel, checked out, chucked all my stuff into the car and took off. Took my a while to get out of Auckland, I couldn't find SH1 going north, kept getting on SH1 going south, and couldn't get turned around. Finally got going in the right direction, and went up through Orewa, which has a wonderful beach that runs next to the highway. Stopped and took some pictures. Continued to Waiwera, which has natural thermal pools (all commercialized now). Took a couple of pics of the beach and oceanfront there. Then on to Warkworth, where I stopped at Sheepworld and took some pics of the beautiful countryside, then at Dome Forest and took a short 40 minute hike to Dome lookout. Nothing spectacular there, but very nice forest walk. Then drove up from Warkworth to Wellsford. Here, I veered off of SH1, and took the very windy (perfect for my car!) road up through Mangawhai, Langs Beach, Waipu Cove and connected back up to SH1 at Waipu. At Waipu Cove, stopped and took some pics. Also stopped at Langs Beach and took pics of the very nice beach and a few people surfing the waves there. Continued up SH1, then took another short detour at Ruakaka through Marsden Point, One Tree Point and the New Zealand Refining Company for another photo op. Continued back on SH1 to Whangarei, where I hit Burger King, then went to Whangarei Falls, a very spectacular 26m waterfall in the city. Spent about 30 minutes or so, then decided to continue on up to Paihia, hub of the Bay of Islands (144 islands in the bay, named Bay of Islands by Captain Cook). I parked my car along the beach and walked to Peppertree Lodge; Let's Go gave it the thumbs up. Very nice hostel, sparkly clean and bright, 4-bed dorms with en-suite, $18/night (with BBH card). From the look of the other hostels, though, they all seem very nice and clean and modern.

Paihia is a small town, population 3000 in the winter, skyrockets to nearly 40,000 in the summer. Very nice town, reminds me of a bright, sparkly, tourist town one would find in Banff (only smaller) or on the islands on the west coast, when I sailed with my uncle. I very much like it here, and I've only been here a few hours.

Walked to the main commercial drag and found a supermarket and stocked up on groceries, back to the hostel and made grilled cheese sandwiches for supper. Lots and lots to do here, I may stay a couple of days.

Went to bed about 10:00.

As I was driving on SH1, traffic got stopped by a cattle drive!!!!

No comments:

Post a Comment