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9/03/10
Back into Wellington city centre this morning, had a look around the Museum of Wellington City and Sea. The museum was over three floors and was really interesting, we learned a lot about the general history of Wellington and also about the boats and the harbour. Wellington seems to be a lovely city from what we've seen, the harbour is a really nice place to just sit and chill, especially when it's as hot as it ws today!
We got back on the SH2 and began the mammoth journey back up the North Island. We drove for hours until it got dark and we were hungry so we pulled over in some wooded rest area and had cheesburgers and pasta. While we were cooking we kept seeing sets of green eyes staring at us from the fields and bushes behind us, we came to the conclusion they were possums or something 'cause they seemed quite timid but very inquisitive, we hoped they were anyway! We had dinner and didn't get eaten ourselves by whatever was out there so that was a bonus and then we carried on driving the last part of the journey. We finally got to Te Puke at 03:00! We went to Papmoa beach and had a well deserved kip!
10/03/10
Made it back down the road to Te Puke just in time for our Trevelyn induction day. We walked in and the room was full, mainly Maori so there wasn't much room to move, they're not usually known for being skinny! We queued up to get our contracts and we noticed that we weren't working together, I was on 'packing' and Simon was on 'stacking' which meant we wouldn't be near enough to each other to talk and have a laugh so that was a downer. We filled in our forms and headed off for the grand tour of the 'sheds'. It's basically a massive factory with conveyer belts all around, my job involves waiting for the kiwi fruit to come off the belt and I put it into boxes, rocket science or what?! I had to endure a big lecture about how to do this and also about working as part of a team, we were spoken to like idiots/children, I mean I could see why as some of the other people in my group looked a few cans short of a six-pack but I didn't like it, and I don't think Simon did either! He was being shown how to pick boxes up and stack them, another mentally challenging job I don't think! After to tour we all had to sit down again and one of the managers gave us the hard talk on the 'do's and don'ts' of the job, god she was a bulldog! She laid down the law no messing and Simon whispered to me that he could see himself falling out with this one, she was talking to us like we'd just bagged the job of the century and we should be on our knees thanking her for the opportunity, I had to stop myself from laughing out loud ha ha! The whole thing lasted about two hours and we were glad to get out of there. We drove into town and pulled up. Simon said almost straight away that he didn't want to do it and neither do I to be honest but I'd do it for the money. We worked everything out and weighed it up, basically for the next five weeks, six days a weeks, nine and a half hours a day we'd only earn minimum money. The fact that where we would be staying also meant we were quite isolated (it was an hour walk into town) and we weren't sure if it was worth it. Five weeks is a long time to be stranded on a caravan park with nothing to do but work and sleep! We're thinking of changing out plans (again!) and when we return the van on the 15th we might see if we can get a flight back to Australia earlier than planned. We'd be in Australia for five weeks so it would mean going home even earlier than we thought but this way we're still doing what we want and we don't have to spend five weeks in a factory working nights! We are gutted we're gonna end the trip early but seven months is a long time to be travelling and it eans we get to see family and friends sooner. Again I need to speak to Steve, hope it'll be o.k!
We drove to Rotorua this afternoon and just outside the town we found a great spot to camp right by the 'Blue Lake', the stars are amazing tonight, perfect for camping!
11/03/10
Back in Rotorua we headed to Kuirau Park which is a geo-thermal area and has a crater lake, pools of boiling mud and steam and mineral baths. It proper STINKS round here, it's the sulphur in the air and it stinks like eggs, it's horrible! Some of the pools were really impressive, really hot bubbling mud gurgling away, some of them were small but quite ferocious and you could see mud all over the trees nearby where occasionally the pools will errupt and cover the surrounding area in mud, now that would be cool to see!
We left Rotorua and headed out on SH5 southwest, we joined a saller road and finally made it to a small port town called Kawhia where we're gonna stop for the night. We pulled up next to the sea, getting used to sleeping by the water, it's really relaxing.
12/03/10
We had a look around the tiny town of Kawhia (one street!) which didn't take long then we headed to Cambridge. We stopped on the way at a place called Te Awamutu which has gained an award for the cleanest toilets in NZ! They had a shower so I took full advantage of the facilities and washed my hair (never thought I'd say that about a shower but after living in a van for three weeks believe me, it's the best thing that could happen to you!). We stopped for the night just outside Cambridge, Lake Karapiro. We're parked up next to the lake with a view of the dam and if it wasn't drizzling it'd be perfect.
13/03/10
Cold in the night for a change but still woke up boiling, there's no middle ground in this bloody van! We went to have a look around Cambridge, it was a quaint little town but not much going on. We decided to head to Raglan which is the 'Byron Bay' of NZ where it's full of surfers and supposedly beautiful people. We needed somewhere to stop for the night so we drove through Raglan towards the coast where there are a few different bays. Rangipu beach was the first one we came to but it had plenty of 'No Camping' signs so we continued to Ngaruniu beach which was the same, next to Manu Bay which is said to have the longest left hand break in the world (I think that means more if your an actual surfer!). The bay is beautiful, one of the best we've seen so far so we drove up the hill a bit and found a pull in overlooking the bay between Manu and Whale Bay, the view was amazing!
14/03/10
Last day in NZ, woke up to a spectacular view, this is what I' gonna miss. We went back to Raglan for a look around, it definitely has the feel of Byron Bay about it but it's smaller and just not the same. We're heading north up SH22 to get a little closer to Auckland to drop the van off tomorrow. At the mo we're on a bit of grass just off the road, I'm writing this and Simon's cooking a fry up in the back, yum!
We continued driving up this long winding road about half an hour then turned the corner and there were barriers across the road and a marshall in the road telling us the road was closed for a bike race or something. We'd got hardly any diesel and I mean hardly any(!) and we had to turn around and go all the way back so we could get to the main highway, it was tense. Not sure if you've ever been to NZ but if you have you'll understand how tense it was, there just aren't any petrol stations for miles and miles, in fact there's NOTHING for miles and miles so if you break down you're completely screwed!! On the way we saw a loose sheep on the road so we stopped to take a pic, boy do they scare easy, as soon as we stopped near him he pooped himself and started running up the road! We followed him until he ran up the verge and tried to get back in his field, at least I managed to get a photo of him, I'm not kidding these b*****s are fast and they're complete wimps who run off at any little noise! Anyway, enough about the sheep bothering, we finally made it to a petrol station in Huntley, god knows how we made it but we did by the skin of our teeth! We carried on up SH1 towards Auckland and turned off and headed toward the coast so we could have one last night by the sea. This was easier said than done, it took us ages to get where we wanted to be, we made it to Bethells beach and decided we were stopping here no matter what it was like!
15/03/10
Woke up early and set off to Auckland to return the van. Managed to find it quite easily (first for us!) so we had plenty of time. We fobbed the woman off at Nomads (the campervan hire place) about how many km's we'd done so we didn't have to pay as much diesel tax ($5 every 100km's!), it was her own fault for not writing down the mileage correctly! She gave us a lift to the airport and we had to kill a few hours waiting for our flight. We had a real good time here in NZ, it was definitely an experience I'll never forget!
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