Wuhuu were back already, all hail WiFi, the lazy mans internet!
Well let us continue our epic. We left Wellington and drove toward the west coast of the north island, opting for a slightly (100 km or so) longer road, so that we did not have to venture into the city of Wellington with Nettie. We were not sure if her frail Toyota sensibilities would be able to handle the pressure of downtown. No, that not something we have made up, just so that we don't look like chickens, we were… chough… generally concerned. And seriously if it were an excuse, we would have come up with something better! Besides it doesn't even matter. Hmpf!!!
And after this slightly hormonal outburst (why hide it… We all have them) we will now continue the story for real.
As previously stated, and we can say that, because this is not an exam paper, we were making our way to the west coast, or more specifically Wanganui and the Taranaki peninsula, thingie. Not a lot happened on our way toward Taranaki, although we saw a gigantic kiwi made out of, what looked like straw matts. Like the Welcome matts. It was rather random, so, off course, we pulled over and had our own personal asian moment! That evening we stopped in Wanganui, and the next morning we went and saw a park that they were very happy about. It was a nice enough park if you like ducks, which we don't. - both of us kinda wished we had some stale bread, so that we could do a bit of an About a Boy reenactment.
After the park, we decided it would be best if we left, so we jumped aboard Nettie and raced out of Wanganui, making our way to Stratford, not upon Avon, but rather in the center of Taranaki. Allthough we had a small stop in Harewa to look at the giant plastic cow, they put up at the entrance to their dairy factory. We are rather fascinated by the large food products and animals, that they seem very fond of, mostly because no one really seems to know the purpose of these things. But they are really cool, especially the giant peach they put up somewhere along the I-95 in Georgia, USA. Mostly because it just looks like a giant butt, mooning all the cars that go by! Tuz finds this absolutely hilarious, but then again her humor has always been, a bit… well, lets be gracious and say infantile!!
After the giant cow incident, we found ourselves in Stratford, or more specifically in the scarryest… no coolest… no, most halfway unsettling campground we have encounteres!!! It was owned by an elderly English lady, and well she definitely put her mark on the place. The entire campground, the amenity block, the houses, the onsite campervans, EVERYTHING, was painted in a "lovely" pale shade of pink. But ,oh, that wasn't all!! There were potted plants, plates with pictures of cats and other figurines and knickknacks all over the place. She had even hung Christmas light on the porches of all the houses and the office!!! It was… It was… We are at a loss for words, but it was definitely her!!!
We stayed in this lovely little hell for two night, and we must say after a while figurines don't seem so scary anymore, what with there small dead eyes and cutesy poses… Maybe well even bye some for our room once we get home!!! Most likely not though!
After two days of lazy sightseeing, and pinning away after ice-cream, something they were unable to supply us with in Stratford, we decided to drive toward New Plymouth. Though, not before taking a small walk in Taranaki National Park. The bush was very dreamy, we kept expecting to see fairies or some such creatures, but alas, we had no drugs strong enough to create that kind of illusion, not even our magic mushrooms did it!
On our way to New Plymouth we stopped at a museum called Fun Ho! Yes it does sound like Santas House of Hell and Horror, but there were no Santas there. Much to our delight, and probably Santas as well, because otherwise we would have been forced to end said, creepy, old man. No Fun Ho! Was a NZ toy museum filled with small cars and figurines of Native Americans and soldiers. It was rather enlightening, we now know (at least in theory) how to manufacture lead and tin toys! We cant understand how we were able to live beforehand, without this very important knowledge!
Upon arriving in New Plymouth, we found out that there isn't really all that much to see there, so we simply drifted about aimlessly for the rest of the day, and ended up in Te Kuti. Actually from this point on and untill we were once again within the city limit of Auckland, all we did was drift around aimlessly. We felt we had already seen most of what we wanted to see, and we had way to much time on our hands. So we began criss crossing the rest of the North Island, looking for random stuff to keep us entertained.
The first stop we had on this trip was Ohakune, the lovely Carrot Capitol of the World. We went there to admire the large plastic carrot, and old acquaintance of Tuzes. It was still there, and it was still very large and odd!! This was also the only city with a LotR movie location, that didn't advertise the fact! But then again they are the Carrot Capitol of the World. Who needs LotR when you got that. Not that it stopped us from visiting said location on our own, thanks to Ian Brodie!!!
We headed out from Ohakune, and decided to try our luck with Dessert Road, 68 km of absolutely nothing than national park on either side. Unfortunately it was raining, so we really couldn't see all that much. But we weren't stranded there for 3 hours, while somebody was trying to fix the car, neither. Because Nettie was a good solid car!!! Okay maybe we were just lucky she didn't come apart while we owned her, but that still counts as solid!!! After the successfully navigating Dessert road, we had a couple of days in Rotorua. Not that we saw much, but Tuz baked a cake and all was good!
From Rororua we headed towards Hamilton, with a stop at a place called Candy Land. It was a scary, pink and happy place, filled with candy and completely sugar high children! And even worse it had unicorns!!! Shivers at the thought. But they also had an isle of eatable liquorish, so it was almost worth having to come face to face with an army of hyperactive 5 year olds!
Upon arriving in Hamilton, we went and saw a statue of Riff Raff, that had been placed at "central" location in the city. Yes, yes we will reveal who Riff Raff is, but first, we would like to point out, that if you do not know, you are quite possibly one of the uncoolest people to have ever lived. And no, unless you are under the age of 20, you cant use it as an excuse for your ignorance. Riff Raff is a character from the 1975 movie Rocky Horror Picture Show, and the actor, who was obviously from Hamilton, both wrote and directed said movie. Anyway, after having done the Timewarp in front of the statue, we headed to the Kiwiana Capitol of New Zealand, and ended up spending the night and most of the next morning there. Not that we got all that much sleep, there were freaking mozzies everywhere! Tuz even had a mosquito bite inside her nostril, seriously, if there was a patch of skin showing, you would attract at least 10 of the damn things!!! However ,the Kiwiana Capitol was pretty neat. It was a very small town, filled with displays of Kiwi culture and ingenuity. Although, Austrailians have laid claim to some of the things that were on display. But it was rather informative and odd, but in a good way!!! Once we were finished we went to Waitomo, and got ourselves a nice, cheap cabin to sleep in, just by looking very, very hung over!!! Seriously we must have lost several liters of blood , thanks to the mosquitoes, so we spent the rest of the day recuperating in our cabin while watching TV. Waitomo is apparently very famous for its caves, but we decided that we had seen more than enough caves on our holidays to Belgium to last us a lifetime, so we opted to do an abseil instead. That turned out to be a very, very, very good idea, because our guide was just super gorgeous. He was really ultra hot and cool, and he was just really nice and he had the COOLEST car. It was a veteran Falcon500 with a CD player, and real leather and wood interior. It was an awesome car!!! Oh and the abseil was really something as well, and the guide said we were naturals!! Giggels like a lovesick teenager… Sigh that was a good day!!! Man… we need boyfriends….
Once we had said goodbye to our guide, we headed to Port Waikato, the most northerly LotR movie location in New Zealand, Weathertop. The location in itself was some 10 km outside of town, so we spend the night, before heading out, once again guided by Ian Brodie. As it turned out, the 10 km we had to travel were on gravel road. And a very narrow one at that!! It made for some rather interesting driving, but it also made it impossible to turn our car around, once we reached the location, so instead we had to navigate our way back toward a major road. So what was supposed to have been a short ½ an hour trip, turned into an 2½ hour quest!!! But the scenery was absolutely amazing and we had heaps of fuel!
Once we had stumbled back onto a paved road, we turned the car toward Auckland, and by midafternoon we entered back into the city of "WTF, that road isn't supposed to be here according to the map, and Sh#t were back on the southern express way" , or Auckland for short!! We almost just abandoned the car a couple of times! But at last we managed to find our hostel.
The first 9 days were spent on readying the car and selling it. Which was a total bore, spending several days in a row doing nothing but starring holes in the air at a car market is REALLY borring, but finally we were able to sell her to a completely unsuspecting German, who knew even less about cars than us!!! As it turned out, that was a good thing, because she did need a lot of repairs, but he had already bought her, so it was not our problem!! And besides, if she falls apart on him, its probably just bad karma from the war!! The rest of the time here, we have either spent on going to the movies or sightseeing…. Mostly fashion shops!! He he, we cant help it clothes is just so cheap, and well were girls, shopping is coded into our DNA!!!
Well this will be all for now!! See you on the other side!… Of the Pacific not death, geesh were not that suicidal!!