Van stuff, and a walk on the beach

Spent the morning meeting legislative requirements for a warranty of fitness certificate for the camper van. It failed first time (handbrake not adjusted correctly), but after authorising the extra work, it passed second time round.

Then a trip to the auctioneer to do all the paperwork and arrange to drop the van into their yard on Saturday.

Home again by noon, exhausted by the frenetic Auckland traffic and poor signposting. The people putting signs up fail to realise that there is always a delay between seeing a sign, considering whether it applies, and beginning to act in response. In Auckland, the signs are either so small or so late placed that one is usually part way through the intersection before realising you have to turn/change lanes etc.

Kura and I then drove out to the west coast and walked on the beach a long way. We were about to return when Kura's foot slipped sideways on a rock and she twisted her ankle. She is now pretty immobile, and it looks like we will not be walking tomorrow. As she said ruefully tonight, "at least it didn?t happen early in the holiday!".

Into Auckland

Had the AA do a vehicle inspection. The AA assessment today was good. Apart from a slow oil seep from the gearbox tailshaft and a need to change the oil and coolant, the vehicle and mechanicals are sound and in "satisfactory condition".

Drove from Whangerei via the coastal scenic roads to get a taste of the region. Blue sky and sunshine, nice. Travel quite slow, particularly as we approached Auckland, due to the steep hills and the number of heavy trucks heading towards the city.

Arrived at Mt Roskill about 430pm to a nice welcome from Gladys. She has just offered us the use of her house while she is away over Easter, which is very kind of her.

Had an older couple come around to look at the van, but they were not willing to come to our price, nor to the price we were prepared to drop to - they were wanting a $3k discount to $6500.... But that's not a consideration yet. Unfortunately my "loose lips sink ships" so they know we are leaving Sunday and probably think they have us in a corner (I'm not a salesman and do not want to be...). I'd rather auction it than be a party to that kind of coercion. We parted on good terms. I'm unsure whether we will see them back again.

Storm damage and the Waitangi Treaty

The campsite we stayed last night was very nice even though the owners were really under the hammer. The floods had swept away their water pump and the pumphouse, scoured their river boundary, and left all of the grass and soil so water-sodden that it squelched as you walked. The municipal water supply was contaminated, but because their storage tank was full of good water before the pump went, they had a reasonable sized buffer - so short showers were requested!

We visited the Waitangi treaty house this morning. A very interesting visit that highlighted the differences between Australia and NZ. Mostly remittance men rather than convicts, a more fertile land; I sensed it was a less brutal society as a result, in spite of the frequent internecine Maori warfare that included cannibalism on occasion. Whether I am accurate in saying this I am not sure, but that's my perception.

Here the Maori tribes were well organised and recognised that their world was changing without them being able to stop it, and over a period of time, negotiated a treaty with the British crown that secured them ownership of their forests, sea etc. It does appear that some of significant success factors were:
1. An external threat (the threat of a French takeover on parts of NZ) caused the Maori tribes to want to unite with the Crown
2. The apparently positive, trusting relationships the Church Missionary Society missionaries had with Maori chiefs
3. The positive relationships and mediation skills developed by the British Government's Resident as a result of being sent by the Crown to be their representative in NZ, but without being given any tangible authority or power (he was sarcastically described by Maori as a "man o' war but without any guns"). Perhaps this was ultimately a very positive thing...! He was ultimately succeeded by the new Lieutenant-General of NZ, but served on as a key negotiator and support person.
4. The strong leadership of the Maori chiefs.

Although the implications are still being worked through 150+ years later, I am very impressed with how the union of the two peoples has occurred here.

Everywhere we traveled today we saw the evidence of the half metre of rain in 36 hours. Railway ballast washed away leaving tracks suspended in a void, very large tree trunks caught in rapids, trees with debris up to a metre up their trunks. As for the landslips, it has been an eye-opener to see the number of huge piles of rocks and clay on the road from Paihia to Whangerei. Most of the roads here have either one side a very steep hillside up or down, and in some cases both...! There were traffic cones and workmen all over the place removing slips from the roadway, rebuilding where the verge had been swept away by the current, etc etc.

Tonight we are at Lois's place (nee Nelley) in Whangerei in the backyard. I was successful in getting an AA inspection booked for the van for Tuesday morning here in Whangerei, so we'll need to be up and away early to ensure we appear at the nominated 830am appointment. Groan. :-)

We had another response in relation to the camper today. Not sure where this person is, still waiting for another email from him.

Meeting more Nelley's - and a chance meeting with Seriah

We, like most other campers, left very early this morning. I suspect they had probably, like us, discovered how awful the facilities were. We couldn't wait to get out of there...! The most expensive caravan park we've used, and the equal worst with several other very poor parks (most ranging from acceptable to very good).

So we traveled towards Aron Nelley's farm using the local car ferry.

On the way we had yet another "God-moment". We had stopped after leaving the ferry, me for coffee, Kura for a craft shop (!). As we were about to leave, a slender young woman stood in front of the van some 20 metres in front of us and stood there with an wistful expression.

I said to Kura "what does she want...for us to give her a lift?". The girl then stuck her thumb out to make it clear.

So we decided to help her out. Seriah sat in the rear seatbelt right behind us and spent most of the time telling us about her travels in NZ and the people she had met. In one of those coincidences that maybe are not, we learned that she was from Fremantle, had lived in Boya as a child, and that she had just spent some time living with a young NZ family who were radical Christians living a simple lifestyle (solar power, grow own food, process food manually etc). Seriah was impressed even though she said "she was not religious", and told us about their simple and loving lifestyle. We felt that we were once again presented with evidence of God working in a person's life.

We offered to take her to the town that was next on the road we were travelling along but she needed to get to Auckland quickly so she opted to bail out at the appropriate intersection. As we parted ways where our road to the farm diverged from her's, to Auckland, I encouraged her to keep thinking about what she had seen and heard on the little farm.

We were concerned about her safety as a single woman hitch-hiking, and prayed that God would watch over her and keep her safe - and thinking about the things she had seen and heard.

When we arrived at Aron's and Lynne's farm, we were welcomed for lunch and spent a pleasant time talking family history. Aron then took us both on the quad bike for a tour round the farm, up to a high hill where we could see the tidal river going through his place. Eat your heart out Liam (:-)

We then traveled onto Ahipara where we booked into a simple but very nice, clean campsite with an easy-going, friendly manager - and it cost only $25. Good to know that yesterday was an aberration!

A much better day today.

Storms in the north island [29 March]

Well, what a day. We waited until 945am before leaving Manakau, near Auckland, in order to evade the rush hour. Even that didn't help us too much...the traffic was thoroughly jammed up to Auckland. It took us about an hour to travel to the CBD because of the stop-start driving in the pouring rain.

Crossing the river bridge north of the CBD was a nightmare as we ended up in a highly constrained lane with concrete walls one side and other lane edge hardware on the other. The wind was blowing strongly and there was little room for error. I was thoroughly relieved to reach the end of the bridge.

We decided to go to the west coast to escape the rain, even though we had no idea of the extent of the rain and flooding. It wasn't until we started westwards and began encountering creeks almost mat the level of the road that we realised that the weather was quite severe.

We made an early decision to book into the Matakohe Top 10 as soon as we arrived, before going to the Kauri Museum. We were lucky enough to get the last self-contained unit, so we are snug and warm tonight.

The Kauri Museum was very, very good, and even though we spent two hours there, we need more, so we're going back first thing tomorrow morning to continue. Lots of examples of ancient Kauri trees exhumed from swamps in excellent condition after tens of thousands of years; a complete sawmill set up and operating slowly so you can see how it works; stationery engines; bushcraft exhibits, heaps. Excellent.

Betty, a relative of Russell Nelley, is collections manager at the museum, but she is still on leave so we did not meet her.

From quiet bush to hectic suburbs [27 to 28 March]

27 March

Spent a longish day driving south from Tapu. We stopped at a number of small towns to look around, including a drive inland on a very narrow blue metal road with sheer sides to look at a very large Kauri tree that is still alive, the "Square Kauri" that was preserved by loggers because of its unusual shape.

I bought plugs and points for the van, having become quite frustrated with performance. The van toolkit has now EXPANDED to include a feeler gauge to enable me to set the points. It would also have had a cheapie spark plug spanner, but Repco had sold out :-( However, I was offered the loan of a beaten up shop demo wrench, very kind of them, so I replaced the plugs there and then - all except for number 4, which like our own bus, was almost frozen in. When the borrowed wrench started bending, I abandoned any intention of replacing the plug, imagining either a smashed and stuck plug, or an embarrassingly broken wrench. So we're now operating on 3 new plugs and one old.

However, our main activity was to drive into the Karangahake Gorge to do a walk. A brief conversation with a DoC staffer identified a 3 hour walk into the hills to see a large remnant Kauri as appropriate, "as long as we didn't mind getting our boots wet".

Well, the significance of that statement emerged as we travelled onwards. In all we made 7 or 8 creek crossings, balancing on randomly placed, slippery rocks - then of course, the same number coming back. Somewhat frustratingly, we keep crossing what I judge to be the same creek, to and fro...someone in DoC had a sadistic sense of humour. Although we didn't fall in, there were a number of occasions when we slipped and came very close to getting in the drink.

The walk became very steep towards the end, and Kura commented that the steps, where laid, were clearly for someone with longer legs than her.

We emerged muddy and tired some hours later. As it was getting dark, we started travelling towards Russ and Mary-Ann's place at Whangamata. They had kindly made a bed up ready, so we scoffed baked beans and fruit along the way so as not to make any last minute imposition (we had not decided to go there this night until we had emerged from the bushwalk and were on our way).

It was lovely to drive up the familiar road to their place, "like coming home" Kura said.

28 March

Up early talking with Russ before he went to work. Then replaced the points and went for a test drive...much better now, motor missing nowhere near as much...very pleasing.

Rain pouring down and power went out, so noone could have a shower due to no water pressure. However, shortly before Maryann went to work, it came on again, so she left us there enjoying the hot water!

Before we left Whangamata, we explored a quarry that had taken Kura's interest for it's geological formations. Couldn't find the main feature after a walk, so we left. On the way we travelled through Kauaeranga Gorge, so we stopped and walked a bit, getting quite drenched.

Travelled north on the motorway and reached Manakau on the outskirts of Auckland about 330pm. Traffic getting very heavy and I was tired, so we bailed out looking for a motel or somesuch. Even that was stressful due to the traffic (we'd come off, then back on the motorway in the search for reasonable accommodation).

After some highly stressful wrong turns and recoveries, we ended up at a Top Ten park that had a single motel unit that I took on the spot, as the forecast is for 35 to 45 knot easterlies and increasing rain tonight...not a night to be in the van with a long walk to the facilities.

A gentler day than expected... [26 March]

Left Coromandel for areas north. On the way we decided to go no further than Colville, as the driving is quite tiring, and there was a lot of winding gravel road to travel to get to the next place north of Colville.

I (Ian) was also feeling rather drained. So we cancelled the intended trip to the northern tip of the Coromandel peninsula and instead had a relaxing drive with a number of stops on little rocky coves. This included a stop for carrot cake from the Colville Caf? (per Lonely Planet), cappuccino for me and a blueberry smoothie made with soy milk for Kura. The lady was very helpful, giving Kura a try with a small glass of the brew before committing to it, as the smoothie wasn't cheap. It was very tasty, so she went the whole hog - and had no ill effects, which was great.

We had a number of very nice encounters with people as we traveled southwards again.

We stopped at Woodworks, a rampant bush block in the middle of nowhere where we met Greg, a talented maker of furniture from cypress pine slabs. His very impressive repertoire was shown in his photo album...pieces shipped all over the world.

After we had chatted for a while, Greg revealed tentatively that he was a Christian, and we had even more to talk about. It was a case of mutual encouragement, ended only by the revelation that he had to get back to tending his roasts - it was his birthday and he had guests coming. So we wished each other well and carried on our ways.

Stopped at another little bay and prised Pacific Oysters from the rocks, managing to get some off successfully and cooked them with chili sauce. Some we had to discard as once cooked, they do not open like mussels and we could not get them open. Only later when talking to Ray and June (see below) did we discover exactly what they were and that you have to smash them open....

We decided to stop for dinner on a patch of lawn right on the beach in a tiny seaside hamlet. We ate as the sun was low on the horizon - very nice environment. After tea we walked over to where an elderly couple, Ray and June, were fishing for snapper. We talked for a long time and June let Kura handle the rod for a while - that was her fix...

It was very pleasant watching the sun set over the sea and the more distant Auckland region (we were just across the Firth of Thames so for us the sun appeared to set across the sea). After the sun set we said goodbye to them and carried on to Tapu where we set up camp in the dark.