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Author: Tama
tama@vorb.org.nz
As the more aware of you will know there was a big music festival up in Auckland called "The Big Day Out" with lots of rocking bands. So a plan was formed and it involved Stacy & Rachel (2 of my flatmates) and I jumping into my little Corolla and driving up to Auckland to see the much rocking party bands. The first day went fairly well with me and Stacy swapping driving at regular intervals, playing pumping music on the car stereo and me talking a lot about stuff all (sound familiar?) Apart from my inability to navigate in Auckland which resulted in ending up on the wrong side of the harbour and having to buy a road map from a service station at 11:30pm it was all good.
We stayed at my Aunt & Uncles place that night and the next morning drove out to Mt. Smart Stadium for the Big Day Out. The best parts of the day would have to be dancing to Dark Tower, Pitch Black and The Chemical Brothers. The worst parts would have to be the complete lack of toilets and water - the crowd stampedes and the dodgy timetabling. But all in all a very very good day, so Rachel & I dropped off Stacy at her friends place and headed back to my Aunt & Uncles place. On getting home at 1:00am the phone immediately rings - my cousin got caught up in the stampede and is still at Mount Smart Stadium, so I have to do an early morning rescue mission through the streets of Auckland, dodging the herds of scuttlers now walking the streets begging for lifts.
The next morning Rach & I get up, pack, hop in the Corolla and make north for Cape Reinga. I had cunningly taken the next week off work giving heaps of times to get to Cape Reinga, sift and see Northland. Awesome, magic part of the country with kick butt weather. To save you from boredom I'll just present the highlights:
DAY 1 -
Saturday
DAY 2 - Sunday
Errm, yes folks, sad to say but my little silver Corolla is no more. There's a lovely little town called Ruiwai 28km south of Dargaville where State Highway 2 hangs a 90 degree right hand corner at an intersection. Instead of going 'round the corner my car went more or less straight ahead. Over some plants, through some Telecom junction things, clipped a Transit signpost on the left side and caught a "Scenic Trail" signpost slap bang in the middle. At this point I should mention that I still have a 60,000km flawless driving record with out even a speeding ticket to my name - it was Rach at the steering wheel. We both jumped out of the car and fell onto the grass in a weird state of shock and wonder that alternated between "I'm glad to be alive!" and "Oh no the car is totalled, the holiday is ruined!" The engine had been pushed back to the bulkhead and the front wheels wouldn't even turn. Apart from the shock Rach & I got off fairly lightly with sore necks and backs, bruising from the seatbelts, a cut on Rach's leg and a fractured rib for me. The people at Ruiwai were all incredibly friendly considering we'd just smashed up part of their main street and were offering us tea, food and places to stay.
About 5 minutes after the accident when we were still more or less gibbering imbeciles a police squad car turned up and the local policeman got out. He was wearing stubbies and a Footrot Flats "Rugby, Give it a Try" T-Shirt - having just come from fishing down at the wharf. He took us to his garden shed which turned out to be Ruiwai's Police Station. I won't go into the dramatics (I have a suspicion I was pretty wired by then) but we went back to wait for the truck with the winch to arrive. Got to sit around in the sun pulling the stereo out of my car, joking with the locals and occasionally angsting out big time, all good stable stuff. It turns out the corner has a bit of a history, I'm just glad we didn't mow through their gazebo with the murals on it (about 4 metres away) or we probably would have been lynched.
Got an exciting ride in a truck with winch but no seatbelt (for me) to Whangarei for the low low price of $225. Got the car stored at a salvage yard and managed to find a place to stay which advertised itself as a backpackers but I swear it was a halfway house. However for $15 each the guy who ran the place picked us up in his car, we got a room to ourselves and a cooked breakfast (fish fingers and eggs, yum yum) and he even dropped us off at the bus the next day.... The next day was terrible, I rang around all 9 wreckers yards in Whangarei and the best offer I got was $150 for my car which the guy retracted when I rang up to accept. I had spent $1200 doing it up over December - so this was a total blow (financially and mentally, you know I really liked that car) But a good lesson in economics (Oops, should have said, third party insurance only, argh!) No one would hire us a car one way to Wellington so as previously mentioned we ended up taking the bus to Auckland.
My aunt picked us up from the bus station in special Auckland style grid-locked traffic and we spent another night at my Aunt & Uncles place (with excellent soothing Auckland style wind and rain outside for added cheery ambience.) Next morning found a nice place (with mega surly guy running it) to rent us a nice Red 1997 Corolla 1.6 GL for the rest of our holiday, having come to the conclusion that returning to Wellington in defeat would have been bad all round....
So we pointed North again. Driving out of Auckland in the driving rain everything came crashing through (ha! crashing! geddit?) and I got wee a bit emotional. We drove up to Whangarei (take it as read that I'm at the wheel for now on) got the rest of our stuff from out of the car and a measly 100 bucks for the car.... $100!!!! SUCK SUCK SUCK.... (I'm calm) Drove to Ruiwai, turned the car north and restarted the holiday... This is turning into a bit of an epic but I suppose if your tired of reading you can always go and have a cup of tea about now. Does everyone feel like a bit of an ad break or something?
BUY MORE STUFF - YOU NEED MORE STUFF
We found a cool little seaside village to stay at called "Bayleys Beach" it has a kick arse beach and some cool cliffs and a dairy that's still open at 9:30pm. The beach has wicked waves that make it totally impossible to swim but are a lot of fun if you like being dumped by big breakers. Good surfing to (so I've been told). We got to see some massive Kauri's one of which was over 2000 years old. Absolutely amazing trees to be around, so big you can't possibly fit them in your vision and the history just oozes off them in a buzzy aura. Still can't get over the pillocks that got off the boats 150 years back, tramped through the forest saw these mind blowing trees and thought "I'm going to get my axe" humans can suck sometimes.
At some town (think it was Omapere) we picked up some English hitchhikers called Mark & Dan. They got to sit on the back seat with their packs on their knees and watch me get lost in back country roads. Before I got lost (again) we got to go across Hokianga harbour on this cool ferry that only charges $13 for a car (& driver) and $1.50 for each passenger. Kick Butt!
After visiting the lovely town of Kaitaia we ended up at a campsite at the bottom of 90 mile beach. Mark & Dan met a previous ride who had more room in their car so it was just Rach & Tama again. We drove up 90 mile beach and had a bit of a swim, I think I managed 6 metres before I got bowled by a wave. Got totally body slammed into the sand by one big breaker - still getting sand out of my hair (c'mon, you know I shower once a day.) I didn't realize it but to get out of 90 mile beach you drive up this stream bed with towering blinding white sand dunes on one side and native bush on the other, weird. There were heaps of tour parties riding boogie boards down the sand dunes. Unfortunately my attempt at sliding down on a rubbish bag failed miserably, (& spectacularly.) I can't really describe the big dunes but they are really really large, really, and if you put anything down (say a camera for example) the sand starts to cover it up real quick, kinda eerie...
From then on it was under half an hour on a gravel road to Cape Rienga. Yay! We made it! It's quite an amazing place to be with lots of freaky stuff going down all you have to do is relax and look around and something out there is bound to catch your eye. It is also a lot better when the tour buses have buggered off (but they seem to have a 15 minute turn around time anyway.) The next stop and campsite for the night was Spirit's Bay, the weather had started to pack in and it gave the whole area this surreal feel to it. There was this amazing rock/hill towering above our campsite so we climbed up it in the rain with fading sunlight. Very hard to describe the feel of the place - spiritual sounds spot on and corny at the same time. We managed to make it down just before dark and spent the night sleeping in the car with some mozzies inside (kill kill) and a flattened tent outside (cheers Hugh.) Woke up before sunrise, got out, bundled the tent into the car, started driving south in our jammies (Rach was still in her sleeping bag but I've pointed out I would have had trouble with the pedals if I'd attempted it.) Got to see a superb sunrise boiling over the horizon, even managed to capture it on film.
It was now Friday and I had until midday Sunday to get the car to Wellington (1300km away.) Alright.... So we did a whirlwind tour of the Bay of Islands (we'll be back.) In fact the whole east coast was done at warp speed whichis a sod since it looked as good as the west (the way we'd come up.) Finally pulled into Tauranga at 9:30pm after experiencing 1½ hours of Auckland gridlock (on a three lane motorway for christsake!) I had cracked and we'd ordered a tourist cabin (with real beds and a shower!) using that wonderful toy the cell phone. It came with a lovely view of the estuary but I think I was to sore to really appreciate it.
Saturday involved visiting that wonderful city Rotorua (tourist trap rip off merchants) and Craters of the Moon in Taupo. Which is free, has boiling mud and they give you pieces of fruit (Rotovegas try and gouge you $18 to look at some boiling mud - get stuffed.) It was then down the desert road all the way South to Woodville. We stayed with my friend Karen and her son Max in their cool house (turn of the century stain glass sorta setup.)
Sunday was a bit of a weird one. It was my 26th birthday (it's not to late to get me presents) and I got that birthday old bastard feeling. Plus as soon as we started to drive home it came bucketing down. Ended up crawling over the Rimutakas lights on full, wipers on full... Not a good welcome home. It was then back to the flat to empty the car and return it to the nice young man down town.... There we go...
Seatbelts rule, I'd rather have big purple bruises than a broken neck & brain damage any day of the week.
Life Rules, it's damn precious and you have to get all you can out of it (ra ra)
Cars are fragile. By hokie that was one munched Corolla.
I had a damn good holiday, even though my car is no more.
If I hadn't done up my car and gone on holiday I could of gone to a tropical island with the money I saved (bugger)
Friendship is a bloody valuable thing, and don't you all forget it.
