Retrospective Travel Journal, Day #16
Friday the 13th, February 2009
Time to move on! After spending almost a full week in the Northland, this was the day to start going south. After finishing what was left of our breakfast, we get in our trusty car and head for Whangarei and a coffee with the newlyweds and their brothers at the town basin.
During our “fika” it’s decided that Kim is going to leave with us for Roturoa. After a luggage discussion we realize we’re going to need two cars to get there the five of us! We start with going to the Craig’s to get Kim’s bags. What a house! It’s gorgeous, both on the inside and out, and what a backyard! Check it out:
There’s also a little stream passing the length of their property (to the left in the pic above) that holds a school (?) of eels. When Daniel sits down to say hi, one of them fondly tries to eat his finger (notice also the never changing sound of the cikadas):
It seems we’re visiting NZ smack dab in the middle of the cikada mating season. The sound is everywhere and quite loud. At the Craig’s we actually get to see them up close:
Daniel also finds us one of the shells from which the cikadas hatch:
Ewww, too insecty for me!
After K&K has booked a car online for them to pick up in town, we all go back to the Town Basin to have lunch together before it’s time for me, A, K&K and Kim to head for Roturoa.
While the others are still sitting back and relaxing after finishing the food, I head for a little art gallery next to the restaurant. I pop my head back out just a minute or so later to get A to join me in there since I’ve just found a beautiful decoration for our wall. A kindly joins me and believe it or not, we AGREE on that we need to buy it and bring it home! This is a smaller version of the stingray we end up buying:
After seriously abusing the bubblewrap roll in the store to make our stingray ready for transport, we say our goodbyes to M&D and Ollie and get in our cars and start out for Roturoa. Soon we’re passing Auckland:
…and find ourselves in completely new surroundings. We pass a town with some weird buildings (this is somewhere near Cambridge, between Hamilton and Roturoa):
Since we started out a bit later than we had planned, we watch the sun set from the car, and it’s really beautiful:
Driving on the wrong side:
At about nine o’clock we arrive in Roturoa in the dark. We find our way to Roturoa Treks – the hostel where we’ve got rooms for the night – and check in. It’s a really nice and quite new hostel that we instantly like. Nothing more is accomplished that night, but deciding when to meet up with Triple K next morning for our visit to the Kiwi House and Wai-O-Tapu. We fall asleep quite early with the lingering smell of fart up our noses. Someone had eggs!
Back in five. Or tomorrow. 