Road Trip
January 30, 2006Hokianga Harbour, North Island, New Zealand
9:01pm.
Five days. 1400 kilometres. Five different beds. A car that smells of melted butter and stale crackers and here I sit, looking out at the Tasman Sea, close to the top of the North Island, and just an hour away from our second to last New Zealand destination. I am all swirled with melancholy and relief as the trip nears the end. It felt weird getting back on the ferry in Picton, to travel the Cook Strait, leaving the South Island for pretty assuredly the last time in my life. Hence the melancholy. The relief comes from inching closer to the return home, the scary familiar and of course, the wonderful unknown.
It all started back on the 25th, where we drove three and half hours from Ruby Bay to Blenheim. Our friends, the early retirees, with their methodically verbal son, bought a house about 20kms north of Blenheim, the South Island’s third biggest city, on a nice piece of land that looks out to the gnarly Pacific. The sand is black and pebbly. The garden is exotic and will take effort to maintain.
Glenn is tall and nerdy. Tana is earthy and cackles when she laughs. Their son, well, his speech pattern has accelerated past sloth on Valium like and is now a bit more normal, and a little less annoying. He is smart and builds things and does not watch television at all. Qualities I do not mind Hud aping. He is a tad strange, and very clingy to his mother, who walks him like a dog sometimes for fun. Even having him eat cereal that looks like pet food from a bowl on the floor. Good boy heh heh. Good times.
We spent the night where I started gulping too many beers the moment I started to get a little bored, which was surprisingly late in the evening. Steph claims she had to lead me to the bathroom a couple of times due to my weird sleepwalking habit, but I think she just makes this up so I will suck up to her the next day. If she is, all the power to her, it works, I am at her whim after hearing tales of my pathetic imbibed murmuring as I trudge around strange locations looking for interesting places to drain the main vein. She managed to corral my bowling pin body ensuring all corners and dishwashers remained urine free. The next morning we left, it was a good time and they were nice people who were very nice to Hud and us. My bitterness stems from the fact they are able to spend the rest of their lives wondering what to do this afternoon, go for another sea kayak or another gentle round wine tasting. I am deep as new sidewalk hoark, I know.
The ferry ride from Picton to Wellington was basically the same as the first time, spent in the basement of the big boat, watching Hud on the intermingled tubes and slides, which serve as a playground. This is fine except for the whole area reeks of kid head sweat and on occasion, older kids, kids whose parents banished to the basement so they could sip lattes in peace, get a little out of hand and I fear for Hud’s safety. We did manage to see some of the Marlborough Sounds on the way out, before the secret smokers overwhelmed us and we had to leave. The Pacific Princess it isn’t.
We arrived in Wellington a little after 4:30 and were only a few minutes away from our hotel. We checked in without incident and ordered pizza for dinner. The last time we were in Wellington we ordered pizza as well. It is a local company that we remembered for its great taste. This time we did not have a menu so when I ordered I asked for a meat one for me and a Margarita one for Steph and Hud. The guy on other end (who was way too happy and eager and kept on saying “sweet as”, which I think is the New Zealand version of “right on” or simply “cool”) did not know what a Margarita pizza was, so I told him, it’s just tomato sauce and cheese. Sweet as! He said and hung up. Dum dum dum, time passes, the pizzas arrive and I have a slice of mine and it is as good as I remember it. Steph tries hers. She tries another bite. Taste this she says and I do. Is that ketchup she asks? I try it again. Yes, I reply. Tomato sauce is ketchup here in New Zealand. They gave us a ketchup and cheese pizza. It was gross and after the fourth slice I just couldn’t have anymore. That night in bed we ordered Wedding Crashers and laughed our self to sleep.
The next day we went to the Qantas office and booked our flight home. We arrive in Vancouver at 7:40pm on March 14, 2006. It means leaving our last destination one day early, but the only other flight that worked was on March 29th, and we are broke enough as it is. So that is that. Off to Taupo.
The drive from Wellington to Taupo is about 370kms, about five hours with stops and treacherous curves. Our location for the night is a bed and breakfast we found online. We had not really stayed at a bed and breakfast on the trip and wanted another opportunity to meets some true Kiwis along the way. We found the place with relative ease; it was a new house, just outside of the town of Taupo, overlooking a river. It was a great location and a nice house. The couple who owned the house, Kim and Martin, were retired farmers, both very rural people who had sold everything and moved into the “city”. Both were hard of hearing, Kim calling Hud, Hutton for the first couple of hours. Martin was a salty fart, with crisscrossed yellow teeth, telling me yarns about one thing, like traffic, before being led into another tale completely different, like his golf backswing, all with me just nodding politely. I think I have figured out why people open their homes to let travelers stay. It’s not the extra income. It’s to have someone to talk to. I did my best not to be rude, but I just drove five hours and was just not in the mood to be someone’s conversation sponge. I slipped away and lay on the bed, allowing Steph do the listening.
Our area was two bedrooms, a toilet and a nice soaker tub. Out of curiosity I opened the closet doors to see what extra pillows and blankets were available. Sitting on the shelf, on top of one the pillows, I noticed the familiar pink and bubbly design of a pair of panties. Panties. Panties. They were kind of tossed up there and I thought it odd the closet was not cleaned prior to our arrival. I picked them up, thinking I would just give them to Kim. Oh goodie, they were….dirty. Dirty Panties was the name of my first punk rock band, how weird is that.
Needless to say, I folded them and put them back on the pillow, saving Kim and I the face-to-face embarrassment.
Later that night, after a Thai food dinner in Taupo, we returned and they showed us to a sitting room where we were able to watch some television. Hud went down pretty easy, being gymnast flexible again about all the different beds he sleeps in. Steph was mucking about so I sat down in the chair across from a large television screen ready to catch up on some sports due to their ESPN channel. Sniff. Sniff. Yikes. This chair reeked of old guy bum. I know it sounds gross but it was true. Martin must have sat in this chair six hours a day watching Sky TV; the Murdoch owned satellite television empire. I moved to the couch and watched a game of Texas Hold’em Poker.
The next day, Kim made us a nice breakfast, satisfying the other B. Hud of course schmoozed them both into thinking he was their grandson, and I thought they might shed a tear when he hugged them goodbye. We were off to Whangamata to spend two days with the Pugh’s, a family of five we got to know during our eight week stay in the Coromandel back in the Sept/Oct.
Before we left I did manage to sneak in a swim in Lake Taupo, New Zealand’s biggest lake and the site of a lot of holiday homes and motels. It was clear up to about ten feet, and a little cold, but man do I love swimming in fresh water.
Hud came in for a spell, dunking his head then demanding I return him to shore to his mother and a warm towel.
This is also the spot where our camera finally broke, for good this time, after 4350 pictures, forcing us to make an impulsive purchase of a new one. Not a tremendously expensive one, but one that will take quality pictures for the next six weeks and then some.
The drive from Taupo takes four hours or so (back through Rotorua! Fart town!) and we pulled into Brenden and Sheridan’s driveway around three or so. They were all there, swimming in their small but totally refreshing pool. They have three kids, a six-year-old girl, a four-year-old boy and a six-month-old baby girl. He is a painter/plasterer and she is a stay at home mom. They live in a five bedroom home moments off the main strip of the surf town of Whangamata, winter population 5,000, and summer population 50,000. Steph met Sheridan at play centre back in the fall, and we shared a couple of meals back then, becoming friendly enough to be invited us back to stay at their place for two nights as we make our way back up the North Island.
It was great. These are ex-Aucklanders who moved to a smaller town to focus on their family and try to eliminate stress. He is a bit wound up and very opinionated but a good old boy who likes a good steak and a cold beer.
She is sweet woman with a nice smile who takes care of the household with a bit of an iron fist. Their kids are well behaved and fun, the four-year old being an excellent playmate for Hudson.
The first night we just ate dinner and reacquainted. The next day Steph and I found ourselves at the grocery store alone, Hud too enamored with toys to care where we were. It was an odd feeling, both of us constantly looking behind us to see where Hudson was. We need a date night Steph and I, a real Saturday night, Sunday morning special.
That night, other people came over for a BBQ, including Tina with her daughter Sasha. She was the daughter of one of the couples who lived across the street from us in Onemana. Six year old girls are kind of fun, even if they do enjoy slapping me around a little. I still dug the attention.
It was great for the kids, six of them racing around, playing dress up, eating sausages on the bun (a Kiwi child table staple) and then all sleeping in the tent that night.
I slept there as well, next to Brenden, who snores, making sleeping next to a sawmill appealing. Good thing as well, as Hud woke up and crawled into the single mattress with me, making it cozy and completely impossible for me to sleep.
The next morning we packed up and said our goodbyes, with bloated promises of perhaps hooking up before we leave and other perfect things to say before leaving. Steph was driving, thank goodness, as Hud and I were on the edge of sleep moments after departure.
The drive from Whangamata to Hokianga Harbour was 400kms, taking about 5 hours, quicker this time due to the major highways through Auckland. We are at kind of resort now, for a couple of nights, before heading about an hour away to our February destination. It’s beautiful here, a lot less people, more Maori influence, and a nice swimming pool.
The only thing it lacks is a grocery store, leaving us with take out food. The diet has been lacking as we meander up the Island, and I am eager to get back to casual starvation once we get settled.
The next four weeks will be Internet minimal, so I will post in intervals like I did in November, and at other random points on this trip.
Pretty soon there will be no more posts. My actual moving lips instead.
Love to all,
J.
posted by Jason @ 10:17 AM
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