departing auckland
the day started with a (far too early) waking up at 8:45am, by the hotel wake up call. we grudgingly drag ourselves out of the super comfortable beds (after the couch and the fold out bed of sydney, it was definitely nice to sleep on a hotel quality bed), and went to inspect the breakfast. the inspection was considered a success with 4 bowls of cereal (on my part only), 2 glasses of orange juice, and 2 cups of coffee with cream and sugar.
soon after the adventure has officially began with our checkout and departure from the hotel to the “bus on tahp o; the rahd”, which turned out about 10 minutes walk under blazing sunlight. given how before we were mostly in shade and/or wind, and dressed fairly warmly (like sweatshirt and windbreaker), and ended up being loaded like pack mules (oleg’s backpack is 15 kilos and laptop bag is 7 kilos, and mine are 10kgs and 4kgs) – this lead to a lot of discomfort really fast. upon arrival to the “tahp o’ the rahd” we figured the top is the other side where we could see a bus stop, so we crossed. upon arrival of the bus it turned out that we were on the wrong side, so we rushed back to the other side, and in another 10 minutes our bus came. total savings out of this small adventure: about $20 – since the bus turned out to be $6/person. cheap! we were told tales of 15$ – $20 tickets.
from this point life became a little easier for the next hour, while we were riding into town from the close-to-airport-hotel. unfortunately, in town we still had to haul our bags to vodaphone (to get a sim card. ask my parents for the number if you feel like paying $50 cents a minute to talk to me!), and then to avis. i believe i’ve worked off all the doritos i ate in 2005 on those few walks (and even getting lost once).
the process of getting our cute white 4 door hatchback holden astra was incredible. i don’t think i’ve told any of you that if you reserve the rental car in NZ from canada, the under 25 age charge ($25/day!!!) is waived. i called Avis NZ first a few weeks before christmas to check if we can rent at all, and they told me this information. then oleg called avis canada then avis international who confirmed this
guess what we were told when we arrived to avis to rent the car? “you’re under 25, so we have to stick you with a $25/day charge”. of course we disputed this, and two fairly sleazy looking young men of course disputed us. after them arrogantly demanding to know who did we talk to and when (when i asked why – and i was nice to them, i swear – the main sleazy looking one said “we record all the conversations”. *eye roll*), they said “sure we’ll call avis international to check”, with their own eye roll. after waiting for about half an hour, the less sleazy guy hung up with a slightly disappointed look and told the main guy that “yeah, you can give them the discount here if you wanted to”. argh! anyway, we got the discount. so its all good. :-)
upon settling into the car with all our stuff (i’m taking bets on the amount of time it took me to forget the weight i had to carry and start regretting not taking this or that “since we drive anyway” – hint, i’ve already said that. on the same day.), we quickly left auckland, with only one goodbye snapshot of the city’s skyline. and a blurry one at that!
driving…
the trip around new zealand started off with us heading towards “bay of islands”, which turned out to be a fair bit away. after a challenging drive through the beautiful NZ scenery (see photos for all the photographs/snapshots – i’m going to oversaturate you people with those as much as the sky here is oversaturated to blue, because there IS NO WAY THAT I CAN CHOOSE), we stopped in wharengei, pronounced “fanragey”, for a fairly expensive dinner ($20/person) (but still better than nothing, and at least the food was excllent), and a break from driving.
driving itself is very interesting. in sydney our host’s car had the blinker on the right hand side and the windshield wipers on the left – totally backwards. oleg was worried about it, as it’s a big habit of clicking the blinkers with your hand when you turn. thankfully, our car has the blinkers on the left side, which however prompts the question of what is the standard? we may never know ;)
but, generally speaking, EVERYTHING is backwards. turning left is “sticking to the curb” and turning right is “going to the far side”. driving on highways is alright as you’re moving together with some other cars, but pulling out and parking is just ODD. oleg’s saying that the biggest challenge is feeling where the car ends – its totally backwards.
as the passenger, sitting where i’d usually be driving, is not that weird. the thing that threw me off the most is that the mirror is facing oleg and not me. in the start i had to crash the instinctive reach of correcting it to face me – the gesture comes very naturally after being used to doing it all the time in toronto! other than that, its surpisingly regular – some moments of oddness exist, but mostly its fine.
the thing that made us BOTH feel like we’re on pluto is that the windshiled wipers go the other way. i can’t describe how much you don’t realize it, but its just SO WRONG for them to be rotating the other way. which brings me to rain – and weather.
weather
on the way to paihia (the big city in bay of islands where we wanted to stay and take a tour the next day) the weather changed at least a 100 times. and the most awesome thing is that the sky was always blue throughout that time. basically, it was really sunny, then rainy, then really rainy, then really rainy and sunny, then really sunny and cloudy, then some rain, then some rain and a lot of sun, then a lot of sun, then … you get the idea. it was mindblowingly awesome, cause the sky stayed blue, clouds stayed fluffy, and sun kept on shining, but seriously strange to the maximum degree.
arrival to bay of islands
we arrived into the scarily beautiful bay of islands in the evening. oleg said he had seen more pretty views, and in some respect i agree that it wasn’t the most gorgeous view i’ve seen. however, it was certainly unique. imagine standing on a shore of a bay that’s big, but not so big that you can’t percieve its limits. the bay is littered with islands that are about 50-70 meters in circumference, and each island has its own white sandy beach which turns into a “mountain” (a very steep high hill) that is covered with lush greenery (trees, evergreen trees, and palms). and the sun is setting, and the color is grey and pink, and the yachts and sailboats anchored at the bay are softly rocking on the waves.
unfortunately finding a place to stay was not as peaceful. after going through a whole bunch of hostels (walking between them as there arelike 5 within 3 meters of each other), we found 2 beds in 2 seperate dorms. at that point it was starting to get dark, so it was just easier to agree.
upon figuring that out, we made plans for the next day, which essentially concluded in deciding to wake up at 8, so that we make the cut off time for morning tours – 8:45-9:00am. after walking around the town for a bit and finding a convinience store, we got a phone card (one NZ for dialing NZ numbers, and one international, for dialing out. you use the NZ card to call from a payphone to a local number for the international card, and then you dial the pin, and finally your home phone number), we proceeded to local bar where it was 2 beers for the price of one. the price of one beer is $5. so, life became very enterntaining very quickly.
the bar had some silly contests, and i had the pleasure of watching one with 2 kiwi (that’s new zealanders for those of you who are not “in” to the “slang”) girls who were on their vacation from oakland. the contest was musical chairs, and you could take off your shirt to stay in, or sing a song, or make a little dance. the girls were joking about americans and saying that they’re not shoving enough.
after watching the 12-year-old-looking-guy win, and the a-bit-too-big-girl fall on her ass trying to make it to the chair, i decided that i’ve had enough local enterntainment and headed to the hostel, where the internet was too expensive, but not so much that i could resist its lure. quick emails were sent, vodaphone survey was filled out in order for us to get $10 credit on our cell, and soon after sleep came.