Greg outside his new best friend, the 'Tank'
Shakespear regional Park- our first campsite
a massive yacht in Auckland harbour- the city of sails
24.10.09 - 26.10.09 Bamber House, Mount Eden, Auckland
27.10.09 Shakespear Regional Park Camping Ground
28.10.09 Otamure Beach DOC Camping Ground
29.10.09 Keri Keri Top 10 Campsite
We’ve been in New Zealand almost a week now and so far we’ve managed to buy a van, kit it out with a homemade bed and curtains and buy up all the camping gear we’ll need for our two month driving tour. This process has been greatly speeded up by the helpfulness of the kiwis we’ve come across so far. In particular, the girls Dawn and Claire who run Bamber House backpackers hostel in Mount Eden, Auckland. Admittedly they’re not kiwis, hailing instead from the UK, Glasgow and Yorkshire respectfully, but they were extremely helpful, going above and beyond to get us all the info we needed on buying a car, allowing us to use the hostel’s car park to create our new home from home and granting us a free night’s accommodation sleeping in our van on their premises. It’s been a hard slog, especially for Greg, who’s found a new vocation as a carpenter and general DIYer and we’ve spent a lot of money on the van getting it fitted up as we wanted it, but it’s been worth it because it’s a great little beast (we’ve named it Tank because of it’s 2 ton weight) and we should recoup our costs by selling it into the backpacker market when we’re done. We’ve come across dozens of young couples, singletons and groups of travellers hailing from all parts of the globe who buy themselves a second hand motor to tour in and it’s an extra bonus if it has sleeping quarters in the back. We’ve found New Zealand to be a pretty expensive destination as it’s almost 2 dollars to the pound at the moment. Only a year ago it was 3.5 but the country’s economy has been booming and, of course, ours has been in decline. In the supermarkets food is proving more expensive than the UK but we have found the quality of even basic brands to be better owing in part to the fact that the majority of produce is grown in New Zealand.We’re on the road now, touring the North Island, north of Auckland, heading up to the top - Cape Reinga. The eastern coast has so far been impressive for its beaches but unfortunately the Spring temperatures are not quite inviting enough for us to try swimming. We have however, recently purchased ¾ length wetsuits and foam boogie boards (small surf boards) so we have no excuse not to try some of the famous surfers beaches.
