Our flight was delayed an hour, and our bags got wet in BA and stewed in the plane for 15 hours, but we made it to Auckland without incident. And now we're in New Zealand!
Our first order of business was to buy a car to drive around in. Since it's early summer, there are lots of cars to buy in the backpacker markets. Yes, there are special car markets for backpackers looking to buy a car for a few months. Go NZ. Our hostel (K Road City Travelers) was right in downtown, so we walked a few blocks to the closest car dealer and looked around, as well as checking out the fliers pinned to the board at the hostel and the internet boards. We test drove a few little Mazda Familias (there are lots of weird models here, mostly imported second-hand from Japan). We contacted a guy from the internet board about a Subaru Legacy and met him the next day for another test drive. We decided we liked the Legacy and arranged for a pre-purchase inspection from a local mechanic the following morning. The inspection turned up some obvious points (two bald tires, wobbly side mirror) we had noticed ourselves, and some more serious bits (overworn front right wheel bearing, leaking radiator) that would cost a pretty penny. We bargained down the price to account for the repairs and handed over a giant stack of cash--all $20s, non-sequential. And now we've got a car! His name is Larry, apparently.
We drove out of Auckland the next morning, and arrived in Tutukaka, near Whangarei. Gas is over $2/l, yikes. That's about US$6.20/gallon. Good thing NZ is a lot smaller than the US and we won't be driving that far, even if we go all the way down and back. We scheduled car repairs in Ngunguru and signed up for some diving with Dive! Tutukaka. Our "site", which for us is just a spot to park the car, is at the Tutukaka holiday park and just a few blocks from the marina. We geared up the car in Whangarei, and now we've got the week to spend in Tutukaka playing in the water. So far NZ is rather pretty; we'll try to actually take pictures and post them up. If you've been to Hawaii, it looks kind of like that.
No comments:
Post a Comment