On the Road Again

Andrea’s second week of relief teaching in Auckland went much better, and she worked all five days. This included two days with a very challenging class, two days at a fabulous school, and one day in a class with three deaf children and one deaf EA (and Andrea does not know sign language...seriously). However, after two weeks in Auckland we heard the call of the road and set off driving south.

Our first stop was Hamilton, which is about as exciting as its Ontario namesake. We got some work done on the van, and met up with Suzanne and Les, some cyberfriends of Lynne and Dave, who they met online while researching their own upcoming tour of New Zealand. Suzanne and Les live full time in their 10m “bus”, so we chatted about touring over mugs of flat whites.

From Hamilton we headed to Kawhia (pronounced “Kafia”, as wh makes an f sound in Maori), where we met an eccentric fellow who informed us of every single injustice the New Zealand court system is responsible for. The next day we hit up some back roads continuing south towards Waitomo, where we did the caving about a month ago. Here we took advantage of some free attractions and good weather. We visited the Marokopa Falls, the Piripiri Caves, and the Mangapohue Natural Bridge. All were interesting natural places where Craig was able to break the camera out again after being confined to its case for the whole uneventful stay in Auckland.

Next we headed further south down a road that Lonely Planet described as “true off the beaten track backcountry.” A short detour led to a dirt track blocked by sheep and lambs as far as the eye could see. Once we made it through the herd and avoided a baby lamb trying to hitch a ride we made it to a secluded beach only accessible by walking through a dank, dark 300m long tunnel. Here we had our first exposure to the rugged west coast, famous for its black sand beaches where the sand has magnetic properties due to its high iron content.

After spending the night safely in Mokau, a mere 50m from the beach, we continued further southwest to the Taranaki peninsula. We have been in the area for the past three nights, holding out for better weather in the hopes of doing some tramping on the snow-capped Mount Taranaki which rises to the height of 2518m. However, the weather has not cooperated, the mountain has been shrouded in cloud and rain, and today we glimpsed a peek at the snowy peak.

While in the area we’ve kept ourselves busy checking out local parks (including one in New Plymouth with a FREE zoo, monkeys and all!) and doing some city walks. If the poor weather continues we will visit again in the summer when we return north closer to the end of our trip, as this tramp has made it onto our must-do list.