After returning from Scotland, over a year
ago, we were left with some Qantas frequent
flyer points. Not very many; enough to get
to Perth, or to New Zealand. And as we can
drive ourselves to Perth, we booked some
flights to New Zealand.
 Then -
other things came up. We got a bit carried
away, and went to Arnhem Land and Cambodia;
and we had the motorhome as well. New
Zealand got a bit overlooked for quite a
while. But a few months ago I had the idea
of seeing if Auswalk did any trips there;
they did, and one of them was in the Bay of
Islands. As we've never managed to get north
of Auckland (there's a lot more of the
country to the south) I booked it.
So that's where we ended up. but we began in
Wellington, because that's where we'd booked
the flight to. We spent two nights there
before picking up a rental car; it was a big
city. A nice big city with lots to do, and a
hilly city with lots of ups and downs. To
get to the main street from our hotel we
walked down the street and took an elevator,
which opened into the back of a women's
clothing store.  They
didn't mind us walking through their shop,
but were a bit surprised the day we left
when we walked through their shop to find
that it hadn't opened for the day yet! But
they were happy to open the door and let us
out.
We had to get up to, and through, Auckland.
We meandered up the west coast, then across;
and found Auckland was a much
bigger city than Wellington. Too big for us,
accustomed to country life. Straight through
and out north. Up the west coast - the Kauri
coast, as that's where most of their
remaining - huge - kauri trees are, while
the human population is mostly on the east.
then across to the Bay of Islands, which is
very scenic and a very touristy area - so
much so that in some towns 75% of the houses
are holiday houses. This unfortunately means
that services are not so good - e.g. no
dentist.
Though, this time, we didn't need one.
Auswalk arranged things very well, as usual;
we really enjoy a holiday where we walk a
lot, in scenic places, and are looked after
well each evening. For this trip no evening
meals were included (there were lots of
eateries) but there was a lot of use of the
water taxi. I felt very fortunate when we
arrived by the little water taxi before some
large tour boats arrived and disgorged lots
of people.
While New Zealand is a very easy country to
travel in, it's perhaps less exciting
because of its similarities with home. But
having said that, we've been away for 18
days and it seems like ages and ages!
Simon's
Journal
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