This was it! The Ford Laser was set, and by set I mean that we:
- took two old sofa cushions, skinned them and used the foam to, effectively, make a double bed inside our car
- purchased an old double bed cover and Jen pimped it out to match the customised bed based
- also bought an old set of thick blue curtains and cut them to fit (along with eyelets) to make a set of curtains all around the inside of the car ready to make it nice and dark inside
- borrowed some bedding, pots/pans and bits from Leo and Gee for camping
- went to the local supermarket for dry foods/cooler bag etc
....in summary....we got ourselves ready for a camping trip that we were going to do IN A CAR! Yep...you deduced from the info above...we were going to sleep in our car for up to one month!!!! And a Ford Laser is not a big car by any means. Probably equivalent to a Ford Escort...lol.
After doing some repairs on the car we were ready to head north from Auckland up to the 'Northlands' area. We planned to do between 4-8 days up in the North as a test of how comfortable/viable it was to live/travel/sleep in the car!
Friday 19th Sept: Day One (240 Kms driven) We drove North from Auckland with a full tank of petrol, heading to Whangarai. The views immediately out of Aukland were amazing, nothing short of amazing. About 60kms out of Auckland we hit the first beach....stunning! It was called Orewa and was lush with lots of little islands dotted around the bay.
Jen saw her first Kiwi on the way, I missed it! Damn it!
The first campsite of the trip was at Otamure Bay.
Here, we were one of three campers and were literally on the beach. The weather played up a bit and went from stunning heat to shitty rain all day. A free 'DOC' (Dept of Conservation) site meant that we didn't have to pay either as it was out of season! Awesome. Saving of $14. Love it.
Once there, I (Terry) went down to the beach to take a look and although it was raining it was still beautiful. Just like Thailand in fact, which was great as it was what we were hoping for.
Saturday 20th Sept: Day Two (180 Kms driven) We awoke with headaches as we both didn't sleep too well. It turned out our set up inside the car wasn't good on the head and it was friggin freezing overnight as well! And the stupid curtain things kept falling down...stupid things!
After porridge for brekky on our portable stove we hit the road heading further North towards the Bay of Islands. This was tipped to be stunning, as one of our friends had recommended Pahia. Hitting Pahia in the rain put a bit of dampener on it. And the chips were well expensive as well...so we didn't bother with them. They were $2.80 a scoop..and the scoop was pathetic. So we opted for the portable stove again with spaghetti on bread. Lush. Keep away seagulls too!
Leaving Pahia for the afternoon and not taking a boat ride due to it being $70, we headed to Maitai Beach. What can I say. This place was incredible. There was slight precipitation upon arrival, but this soon passed. The campsite was again a DOC and had two other people. You could park your car right up to the edge of the cliff that overlooked a lush shell-shaped bay with white sands.
Dinner that night was veggie sausages fried up in the pan we brought with us, and some peppers chopped up, a nice beach stroll and we were in 'bed' by 7.30pm (lol)....still not sure you can call it a 'bed' but it'll do for now. It had to be an improvement on the previous nights sleep.
Sunday 21st Sept: Day Three (140 Kms Driven) Next morning and after some porridge and cold-as-washing-up using the lame facilities, we headed to the beach for a stroll again. This time, the weather was on our side and it was boiling hot!
Unfortunately we saw 5 dead penguins on the beach which depressed us, but then we headed to the water for some splashage and to catch some rays! Yeah baby! Perfect photography weather. The beach was surrouned by hills so you could get some real good shots.....it looked EXACTLY like Thailand..like some of our awesome beaches we stayed on.
There were amazing overhanging huge trees that I had to get a shot of.
The morning came and went and we headed away from the site to Ngawha Spa...a hot water spring. We were SOOOO looking forward to this.
After utilising Jens awesome navigating skills once more, we hit our precise location and it was better than expected. Only $5 for an all-day session if we wanted in 8 natural hot mineral springs that had been discovered in the 50's and were now used by locals and tourists for fun and for medical reasons. In fact, the owners bought the site due to the wife having a bad back and discovering it completely cured her of it.
The pools (and by 'pools' I mean wooden edged pits in the ground with naturally bubbling sulphur based water keeping it clean and warm/hot), ranged from 28 to 40 degrees!!! Hot as you like in a few of them!! When we arrived there was only one couple in there, so it was a great time to come. You could just slope into one, lather up with the mud from the bottom of the pit and just chill! Wikid for $5 or what?! So we spent like 4 hours there.
The water actually doesn't look that inviting does it! It basically looks, and smells, like sh*t. In fact, the colour is different for each of the the 8 pools, this photo was taken in the third to hottest one, seriously hot! Nobody was in it basically. I braved it for a bit, but then it got too much. I have to say,the mud was the best in this pool.
In fact, we liked it so much, we camped there that night for an extra $2. Wikid. This was the lake next to where the pools were. It was also highly active with sulphur and bubbling but we were told not quite as warm nor good for you as there were birds in the there. If you look closely in the bubble nearest to the bottom you can see my reflection.
Monday 22nd Sept: Day Four (260 Kms driven) Another morning and this time, no headache and no crooked neck! Praise the lord! It was friggin cold in the night pitched up in our Ford Laser by the Sulphur Lake next to us, but this time I had a wooly hat on and tweaked the bed inside! Living the dream!
More porridge and more dipping in very hot natural awesome water from the hot springs (this time for free) and we hit the road heading for Auckland this time. It didn't feel like we had seen that much but we'd covered a lot of ground in the time, so cant complain.
Lots more beautiful scenery with massive, vast, open fields and forests as far as the eye can see with a million different types of tree...so rugged...so awesome. We were heading back to Leo's hosue in Auckland. This time, Jen had a kip as I could be trusted with navigating my way on a straight road. A slight worry with the car turned out to be nothing (phew!) and as long as we could stand the smell from me not washing off the sulphur from that mornings dip, we'd be fine!
Luckily we did and in fact found our way back to Leo's house without any map of Auckland! Lucky Jen woke up in time eh?!
So, one night in Auckland and we're off again on a MUCH BIGGER ROAD TRIP! The car works, the bed is pretty comfy now, we know we can find our way round..so off we go on the big trip to the VERY COLD SOUTH!!! See you in a few weeks!!!
