What I did on my Holidays (pt 3)

Are you ready for the next thrilling instalment of the SodiumLights whirlwind tour of Kiwiland…?

Day three and we’re leaving Auckland for the coastal town of New Plymouth. This news amuses some who tell us that no-one goes to New Plymouth…

For the sake of my sanity (I’m currently fighting a migraine that started while I was in New Zealand 4 weeks ago) we’ll break this into three parts. Each part is more exciting than the last. Well, each part has more photographs than the previous one.

Auckland to Hamilton

Auckland to Hamilton is actually a deeply boring road… I have no doubt that when we drove the road it was a wide and wonderful road through beautiful countryside, but compared to the later roads it was just dull. Sorry.

So, instead, I’ll talk about the roads. Maybe our visit to New Zealand was perfectly timed for the end of the financial year, but everywhere we went we found roadworks. Strangely, these roadworks seem dedicated to improving roads that were in frankly superb condition. As far as we could see, New Zealand had a wonderful habit of improving roads before they fail instead of waiting until they fail, patching them for five years, and then closing the whole bloody thing for a month. More surprisingly, roadworks are accompanied by equipment and workmen…

Hamilton to Mokau

In Hamilton we filled the car with petrol for the first time, and let Karen guide us back out of Hamilton, following a ’69 Camero (with the helpful reg plate 69CMRO) in a wonderfully gentle run through rolling countryside. For the first time (and there were many) I wished that I was driving anything other than the lumbering hire car we had. This was countryside that was created for a mid-sixties V8 lump and some half decent rock music on the radio, but we had a year old Mondeo automatic that cruised wonderfully, but had all the get up and go of a lethargic tortoise…

You always know that the road ahead is going to be exciting when you see a bloody great sign that tells you which of the roads ahead are currently open.

The road from Eight Mile Junction to Mokau had me desperate for another alternative car – this time Little Un, our little Corolla SR – as the road headed up into the hills. Lots of hill climbs and sweeping bends make for an exciting road for a driver, but ultimately a boring road to talk about. Especially when you can’t stop very frequently to take photos…

Every few miles the hills would suddenly part to leave us in a large plain – like a cheaply designed “sandbox” computer game, where the sandbox limits are marked by suspiciously convenient steep faced hills…

Why were we parked here? Well, because it seems like every time they improve the road and cut a corner off, they turn the old bit into a parking area or a picnic area…

Mount Damper Falls

Leaving the mountain road, we followed the coast for a while and for the first time ever, I realised I had no idea what was over the horizon. I know that sounds stupid, so let me explain…

I’ve spent the very vast majority of my life in England, and I have a pretty good sense of direction, so I can normally tell you that in that direction is Ely; Norwich is somewhere over there; London is that-a-way; and Milton Keynes is that way hiding roughly behind Bedford. Going abroad, I’ve always known that Just north of Varaderro and Cayo Coco is Florida; east of Shannon is Washington (ish); and south of Cork is either Britany or Northern Spain.

Suddenly I realised I had no idea where Australia was. Obviously, it was over there somewhere, but if I went due west, would I hit Australia? If not, did I hit Africa, or was I too far south for that?

In a strange way, no matter how stunning the views were, I was actually slightly relieved to dip back inland and drive across the hills, so a turning to the almost ‘eponysterical’ Mount Damper Falls had to be taken.

Once again I fell in love with Kiwi roads. Once again, Karen went a bit nutty.

There’s a wonderful tickle of pleasure runs down my spine when roads become enjoyable, and this road had me genuinely giggling. The wide(ish) road swept round the foot of mountains,across views that had us slack jawed. Repeatedly the road quality dropped slightly until we’re driving a rally cross stage across roads topped with rough lime gravel.

View mount damper falls in a larger map

Where did the gravel come from? And if they could get a gravel truck down here, why were only very short sections of the road tarmaced?

Then we found the rockfall signs.

We’ve all seen them. They’re stupid signs that mean nothing. Have you ever seen a rock fall on a road?

The worrying thing is that this is a photo of me moving a boulder out of the way so we could get past. On a road which had a school bus down it earlier that day. That meant that… Oh feck. Still, it was only a little rock…

We continued on down a road that curved round cliff faces and (on one occasion) a tree. We drove up a slope steep enough that the automatic gearbox went a little nutty and I could smell something getting distressingly warm.

Finally, we reached Damper Falls.

No, sorry, we reached the car park for the footpath to Damper Falls – a 45 minute walk across a field with no shade at 2pm.

I look at GB. She looks at me. She says just two words… “Fairy Falls”.

We turn back.

Driving back the views were disconcertingly different – to the extent that I wondered if we had taken some hidden mis-turning.

Once again, a jovial suggestion that we could happily live ‘here’ is shot down. “It’s a bit rural”. We live in the middle of a bloody field. “A field that’s 10 miles from a county town”. Arse…

We see human life again – a local farmer in a beaten up van; a school bus loaded with children; and a guy tending multicolour bee hives – and wonder how the hell this road copes with traffic. There’s no where to go, and I’d be less than comfortable trying to get two cars past each other in the rockfall zone…

About 45 minutes has passed since we went up this road and yet more rocks have fallen and been cleared out of the way. I decide that rally driving is more exciting that sight seeing…

New Plymouth

We arrive in New Plymouth at the “Nice Hotel & Bistro”. Despite all logic, it’s actually a decent hotel, although a little… poncy. Our room is colour co-ordinated. The bathroom has a collection of pebbles in the corner. And, from our balcony, we can see straight down the top of the busty woman drinking tea in the dining room.

We have just one objective tonight – to get drunk and to have some food. Two. Two objectives – to get drunk, have some food, find some aftersun and badly rip off a Monty Python sketch. I’ll start again…

New Plymouth is strangely beautiful. It’s not the most stunning town for architecture, but it’s sat between the Tasman Sea and the semi-active volcano of Mount Egmont.

As with all towns we visited, we wonder where the kids are. This town should have an eternal struggle between chavs, emos, goths and townies. Every street corner should have a couple of kids making loud comments about boobs every time a woman walks past. Every door opening should have either litter, a homeless guy or a drunken bint announcing loudly that she’s “‘aving a slash!”

Nothing.

Still, I’ve jumped ahead to drunken time. While we’re still sober, I find a pharmacy and ask the chemist for some anti-histamine. She looks at my arm in horror and tells me that I’m looking very burnt. My arm has got significantly worse than yesterday and I’m starting to look like someone poured scalding water on my right hand. I convince her that it’s an allergy and that I always get it on my hands for 2 weeks of summer.

She pretends to believe me, but refuses to sell me anti-histamine, instead giving me a hydro-cortizone ointment. An ointment that I have just this second remembered is prescription only in this country, and I’ve probably just transported it illegally back to this country…

We head back to a restaurant we’ve seen (Andres) and spend about £90 on a feast for two, with some superb local wine, coffee and spirits to finish. We’ve been looked after beautifully by the young lass who has been serving us, so I tip her. An average Brit doing 10% of about $190, I hand the lass a $20 bill.

She looks at my hand in confusion, looks shocked, and playfully bangs my shoulder. I’ve upset a balance…

Apparently, the rules on tipping at different here. Where as I tip 10% for someone who has looked after me (and the Merkins tip 10% for everything and 15-20% for someone who has done well) New Zealand seems to take tipping to be a sign that the gods have shone on your experience and you would happily offer your first born as thanks for the service you have received…

It’s a mistake I was to make again whenever we have alcohol with our dinner. Needless to say, I made quite a few people uncomfortable…

We headed back to our room and planned our next day…

The question on everyone’s lips was – would tomorrow contain as many ellipses as today…?

Tags: auckland, driving, family, hamilton, holiday, mount damper falls, new plymouth, new zealand