New Zealand 2008 - Chapter 1

I’ve posted a bunch of pictures of our trip to New Zealand but they don’t mean much without some context. Here’s some of the highlights from the first few days.

We left home for the Melbourne Airport on Saturday morning before 6:00am with two suitcases, two car seats, a couple of carry on bags, two bleary-eyed but well mannered children, and two tired parents.

The Emirates Airlines flight from Dubai to Auckland was almost full even before we jumped on during its brief stop in Melbourne. Twyla had a breakfast of boiled eggs and zucchini muffins for us while we waited for the incoming passengers to go through customs and get back on board.

For two parents used to the annoyances and perpetual discomfort of international travel, the three and half hour flight and arrival in Auckland was eerily pleasant. Peter was a excited as always to fly and spent most of the trip reviewing the airline safety card pamphlet. Once on the ground, a call to the van company left us waiting just a few minutes in the cool, clear Summer weather outside. Then we were on our way to the meet our temporary, traveling home.

The camper van was big, had a manual transmission and a dreadfully sparse atlas of the country’s roads. To Peter’s delight, however, it did indeed have “three beds, a little stove, a little oven, a little shower, a potty, and a fridgratorator” just as the brochure had promised him and as he had recited everyday for the past two weeks. We were off, still full of excitement, with precious few hours before sunset. First mission… find food.

We felt our way to Auckland’s Grey Lynn neighborhood where our friend and native Kiwi, Emma, had recommended a local grocery. We found them ten minutes too late… they were already closed for the day.

We needed to eat but the immediate vicinity provided only two conspicuous options: a pub and an Italian restaurant. Parental instincts overpowering our wheat-averse culinary preference, we opted for Italian, stared in disbelief at the pasta-only menu, and promptly headed to the pub, children in tow.

It was now almost dark and, according to our GPS unit, we had a 45 minute drive to our campsite at Piha, a famous surf beach on the west coast. I don’t know if it was the unfamiliar girth of the van or the absolute darkness once we left the city but the road to Piha was the most narrow and windy I have ever traveled. I remember absolute silence the entire way but I’m not sure if it was because I focused so intently on the road or because everyone else was terrified.

We pulled into Piha Motor Camp just after 9:00PM to the sounds of a huge party coming from the direction of the beach. Regardless, we found a quiet corner in a field, and promptly fell asleep, the four of us side-by-side on the large rear bed.

As a father, I would hope my first thought in a time of crisis would be for the safety of my family. When the siren went off at what must have been two or three in the morning, I’m pretty sure my first thought was, “Holy Shit! Does our insurance cover the camper van rolling into the ocean?” It was a silly thought in retrospect since I was also pretty sure the world was coming to an end anyway.

We found out later that morning that the local volunteer fire department relies on a World War II era air-raid siren to call them in for duty. We unfortunately parked not 30 meters from it on a day when they just happen to have an emergency at 3:00am. We eventually got back to sleep despite the ongoing beach party and were greeted the next morning by a beautiful sunny day.

From New Zealand 2008

After breakfast, we walked to the beach that surrounds Lion Rock. The scorching grey sand sparkled in the sunlight and turned to black mud where ever it found wet skin. A shallow fresh-water stream rolls down from the hills and around Lions Rock before merging with the ocean. It became our play spot that afternoon. The ocean waves were better suited to the surfers than the swimmers but we did see a number of both in the cold water.

Back in the van, we washed up, had lunch, and headed out from Piha back to the grocer that we had missed the previous day. Our destination that evening was a quite holiday park in Manukau, a suburb on the south side of Auckland. It was a good spot to regroup before a longer drive to the Coromandel peninsula the next day.