driving and Food, I need Food

After Rotorua it was off to the beach. Just an hours drive so close by. Did some stops along the way at another thermal park and some amazing views over a lake. If you are a lover of lakes New Zealand is the place to be. Haven’t seen that many amazing lakes ever before.

Then the beach place. well talk about anti climatic. It was boring. A sleeping retirement town on a peninsula, so one street with houses on one side, the other side was a bit of brown grass and seawater. Other side was ocean, some dunes and then the houses. My used to living below sea level Dutch soul was in terror. Why do people live like that. Never mind earthquakes or tsunamis. Simply the sea is dangerous.

The ocean was beautiful but to many big waves for me to go swimming. Any and all touristy things there where on a boat out on the ocean where the big waves where. And what was the biggest touristy thing? A volcano. So more stinky mud things. Yeah never mind.

Food wise there was one, yes one restaurant within walking distance, it was a fish restaurant and it stank of rotten fish, so nope I was not going to eat there. Everywhere else was at least a 10 to 20 minutes’ drive and reservation necessary. There was one small supermarket and to my big shock it didn’t even have the ingredients to my favorite holiday go to meal. Canned tuna, tomato and onion. I even managed to get that in Zanzibar. But not here. The tuna wasn’t a problem, but fresh tomato was. And onion? Well seems that New Zealand goes for the big is better approach, or that supermarket did. What do I need a one pound onion for? That is stupid.

So not a happy camper at that place. glad to go to the next place. but that was a 5 hour drive for less then 250 kilometers. So why so slow? Because it was up hill down hill bend bend bend bend cliff with bend. ARGGGG terror, why am I driving here?

Once I got there the place was amazing but again on top of a cliff with all the food options 5 kilometers further at the beach so down the cliff.

And the cliff was used by wannabee fire fighters who walked it up with breather apparatus to practice for a fire at a 15 flight apartment building. That there are no 15 flight apartment buildings in New Zealand except Auckland and Wellington clearly doesn’t matter. The fire fighters in little hole in the wall places where the max is two stories have to be able to walk 15 stories of stairs. And if unable to practice on a real stairs they find a steep hill, those there are plenty of.

Driving down the hill to get to the food and well anything actually was again bend bend ARGG why is that idiot driving on the middle of the road. Kind of thing. But I survived and went on a boat again.

Down side of New Zealand ( for me at least) it is a collection of island and a lot of things are on the water. So a boat is part of the deal. Taken anti seasickness pills again. The boat ride was about 3 hours. The pills mean I am not allowed or save to drive for 8 hours. The town wasn’t that interesting. And the B&B is up the hill, with all the bend and the crazy drivers. Auch.

The weather luckily was good. But the sea again to wild for swimming, and in New Zealand they haven’t got the hang of the relax on the beach holiday yet. So no sun loungers and parasols at the beach and somebody coming by to bring you drinks. Bummer.

About two hours after the boat trip and some dinner I felt save enough to drive again. Once up the hill at the B&B I had to admit that I actually wasn’t. so went for a nap. And woke up the next morning.

Next day I decided to stay on land. Went to an animal park. Drove to the other side of the mountain range, did some more driving around and the place is amazing. Coromandel, look it up.

The weird thing was I saw signs all over the place against strip-mining. Why would anybody want to have a strip mine in paradise? Well seems there is gold in the ground, and the powers that be have decided that gold is worth more than a Paradise that can be a gold mine in its own by having tourist over. As if the roads could handle the big lorries that come with a strip mine. The roads cant even handle the tourists.

After Coromandel the next stop was Auckland. Again an over 4 hours drive. Always fun. And this time the drive was complicated by a weekend festival about 30 kilometers from Auckland. So up until then it was great driving, close to Auckland it was a disaster with traffic jams going in the other direction and some idiots who thought that they where special and allowed to drive on the wrong wrong side of the road to over take the festival goers.

Some heavy ARGGG moments again. But I  made Auckland in one piece. And this time plenty of food places within walking distance. What was good. But I do not see the appeal of Auckland. To busy, to many highrise buildings. Grey concrete jungle. Nope not my thing. But I did see a Maclaren in the wild. Wow now that was a nice car. To bad it was standing still in front of a red traffic light. Can you imagine. Paying over 150.000 for a car and being stuck in traffic. For that kind of money you want your own road right? I would. Or maybe those cars are even more? I don’t know. I would like a house for that kind of cash.