New Zealand Far North – 23/24th January

The day had arrived to pick up our camper – how exciting! We are both treating this period as a test as we fancy owning a VW Transporter camper at home. We packed our bags and said good-bye to the Jucy hostel. The camper pick up was only 10 minutes walk so it wouldn’t be long before we got the keys and hit the road! Our mood soon changed when we got to the depot and they told us they had no booking in our name!! They searched their PCs and found that our booking was due to be collected from the airport – not what we had booked! Our exciting van was waiting for us.... 20 minutes car journey away! So we had to get a taxi (paid for by the van company) to collect it.  The taxi driver had a great philosophy in saying that ‘all humans make mistakes sometimes’ – we’re loving how laid back and friendly everyone is.  Makes you feel more relaxed.

The airport branch was heaving so it took over an hour to get our keys. Our van is a ‘Roto-Vegas’ named after the main street in the famous Rotorua (where we will be heading soon!) It’s a Toyota Grand-HiAce 3.0 V6 - that will mean something to the boys. To the girls it has a big engine and is shiny and black! It’s a 2 berth with a camping stove, storage, bed.... and that’s about it! It is a bit battered and has covered 232,283 Kms! It’s great to drive and doesn’t feel anywhere as near big as it is! Amanda also loves driving it. Each van has a name, ours is ‘The Postman’ so we have named him Percy. We haven’t had him long but we have already both fallen in love with it a little bit! 

The decision about where to drive first was difficult. There is so much to see in New Zealand that you could spend a year in a camper... not 3 weeks! It was about 10 minutes before we left that we decided to head to The Bay of Islands in the Northlands. We had been told it was beautiful up there, even though it is far away.

We hit the road and drove back to Auckland city, where we found a maze of roadworks and no way to get on the motorway that we needed! Amanda navigated us through (get me!)and we eventually got on the move. Within minutes we were driving over the Auckland Harbour Bridge – it is beautiful to drive over and the back drop of the city makes it stunning. 

We headed north and after a short while left the motorway for a coastal road, passing through Silverdale (so far from home!) and Orewa, before heading over a huge twisting gorge and stopping at Ruckawa Beech (Bream Bay). This place was like a picture postcard with golden sands, mysterious and intriguing islands just out of reach and perfect blue water. 

Unfortunately we didn’t have long, as we still had a few hundred KMs ahead of us! We made a quick stop off at Whangerei (pronounced Fan-ger-eye) at tourist info and a local supermarket to stock the van before ploughing on. A boy about 18 years old served us and asked “Are you from Whangerei?” Amanda said that we were from England. You should have seen his face, God bless him – he was so shocked that we were from so far away! The best thing is that his name was Roger – what a legend.

Around 30 minutes later we stopped in Kawakawa as we had heard about some toilets designed by a German artist called Hundertwasser so we had to take a look.... and a leak...! They were fascinating, with mosaics, imprinted glass work and artistic twists. It was worth the stop. We also had a quick look around a museum by the same artist (it was actually somebody’s garden!)

We headed for a town named Russell, which has views of the Bay of Islands. We reached a town roughly 8 KMs from Russell named Opue where we realised that 3 of those 8 KMs where water!! Amanda says the map wasn’t very clear... Luckily there was a ferry service running so we drove aboard. Russell is a very picturesque fishing town that reminded us of a 1960’s American small town high street. By this time it was after 6pm so we decided to find camp. We headed to the next village – Tapeka. There were some really impressive houses and beautiful beaches. We pulled onto a beach but there was a ‘No Camping’ sign so we headed back to a lay-by that we had spotted just outside the village. As we pulled up another car joined us, and the man said he lived in the village and that we should ignore the signs and camp on the beach! So that’s exactly what we did. There was no better place to spend our first night in Percy. That sounds a bit odd, but go with it!! While we were cooking our super-noodles on our stove and setting up the bed at least 4 groups of locals stopped to talk to us and wish us well on our trip – they were just as excited as we were! The Kiwi’s are such lovely people! 

We had a walk on the beach then watched the sunset over the dramatic scenery and settled in for the night, a little anxious but happy to be there. It didn’t take long to sleep – the excitement does drain you, and listening to the waves as we drifted off to sleep was nice too.

We woke early – around 6.30am as there were a few fishermen arriving for an early start. The beach had a launch ramp so was popular with the local fishermen. We didn’t mind as they had been so kind to let us camp there and also we had to get on the road. We wanted to make a few stops on route and camp south of Hamilton (around 5 hours drive south). Rather than take the ferry back to the main road, we decided to take the scenic coastal route. On the map it was only about 10KM longer but followed the coast. It turned out to be a sweet and sour decision. The road was one of the most beautiful drives that either of us had done, twisting its way through the forests and passing hidden coves that not many people get to see. It was Amazing. On the other hand it took frigging ages and nearly emptied Percy’s tank! There were a few worried moments when we hadn’t seen a petrol station for 30 minutes or so and the tank was reading nearly empty... turns out that the needle moves when you go uphill! We had enough juice to make it back to Whangerei un-scathed! We filled him up and went to the info centre to see what we could do. We found there was a Marine with some Water Front Shops and also Waterfalls.

We headed to the Marine first – it was called ‘The Basin’. There were a few souvenir shops, cafes and a Fudge Shop. We had a look around, Amanda bought a necklace. The Marina was very clean and pretty and attracted tourist and locals. There were some beautiful gifts for sale; we could have spent a fortune if we had the money or the capacity to carry anything! We even resisted ice- cream!! We jumped back in the van and headed for the waterfall.

We thought it may be a small water feature but were amazed to find a huge waterfall plummeting to the ground around 100 feet or so below. Nature at its finest. We took some pictures from the top and took the path to the bottom. 

There were people gathering so we jostled for position to get a good shot. We then took it in turns to scramble to the base of the waterfall for a photo; Gav first and then Amanda. When Amanda returned Gav was talking to a young Irish couple who were in the processes of moving to NZ. How exciting for them. Gav had offered to take a photo with their camera and in the process stumbled back over a ledge, went A over T and grazed his leg. Luckily not damaging the expensive camera of the Irish couple! Silly boy! It was around 2pm by now so we needed to get on the road to hit our target. 


We headed out of Whangerie and stopped in the next town to get Wi-Fi so we could book an activity for the next day. We went to the McDonalds but couldn’t get it to worked, when we got back to the van we realised we had parked outside a library that had free Wi-Fi. Sure enough we could pick it up in the van so we were sorted. After a short while we hit the road again. It was a long drive back to Auckland where the beautiful backdrop of the city was spoiled by the rush hour traffic! It probably delayed us by 30 minutes or so. Amanda took over the controls of Percy and we had 130km to Hamilton. We were hoping to camp 40km south of that! Amanda was driving at this point and got a bit over excited around a roundabout and everything went flying inside the van! Oops! 

This turned out to be The Roadrunner Motel in Te Awamutu. A quiet camp site that looked a little run down. By the time we neared Hamilton we both were shattered so decided to stop at the next proper camp site.. We were given a friendly welcome by the owner – Faye who told us to park “where ever we wanted”. We grabbed a spot near to the amenities block which had toilets, showers and a kitcken – Perfect! We made some savoury rice for our tea (which was as exciting as it sounds) and set up the van. The plan was to watch a movie before sleeping. It is 9pm and Amanda is fast asleep while Gav writes the blog! Better call it a night I suppose!

Tomorrow we head to Waitomo Caves for Glow Worm Black Water rafting, about 40km south of where we are now – much easier than the 400+km we did over each of the past 2 days!