Wellington

We arrived in Wellington on a Saturday. This was unfortunate because all the professional offices such as film schools and architecture firms were closed. Aside from that, Wellington is an amazing little city. There’s a youthful life to the city similar to what you would feel in Portland. They also have a great waterfront park/promenade too. The city felt, well, more urban than Auckland did. This could be due to its geography; the city is on a bay surrounded by steep hills, kind of similar to San Francisco. If I did move to New Zealand, Wellington would be the place I’d start, not Auckland.

Wellington is also the departure point for ferries heading to the South Island. We missed the first ferry around 1pm and the next ferry leaving was at 3am. We really hadn’t “gone out” at all in New Zealand and thought this might be a good opportunity. A word of caution, New Zealand shuts down at 6:00pm. It is quite bizarre. Besides a bar or two nothing is open after 6/7:00. The city becomes a ghost town. Also, the bars and cafes that are usually open are only open until 11 or 12. So much for the nightlife. However, Wellington gets my thumbs up approval.

Hot Stuff

So now the real journey begins. The three men join up with their campervan to embark on their journey across the country. First stop, the Coromandel Peninsula, Hot Water Beach and Cathedral Cove. The Coromandel Peninsula is known as the beach vacation area of choice for the wealthy in Auckland. We decided to only visit two beaches on this peninsula.

Hot Water Beach is a beach in which thermal springs reside underneath the sand and people dig holes in the sand that then fill with the hot thermal water. This can only be done at low tide where the water is low enough for people

to make the holes near the source. We unfortunately reached the beach at high tide and were unable to make our mark. It was a perfectly sunny evening so we enjoyed the sand and surf instead.

After a good but little disappointing experience at Hot Water, we decided to travel north about 9km to Cathedral Cove. This famous beach is named after an arch rock formation separating two coves. We arrived there just before sunset and watched the sun set to the east. This has to be the highlight of the trip thus far. That night the sky grew dark and cold. The rain and wind pounded our little castle reminding us all that it was still winter here.

The next day was a sprint across the heart land of the North Island. From Coromandel we headed south to Wellington only stopping for gas and nature’s necessities. The drive was lengthy and took us much longer than we anticipated. Our wonderful little camper van (we nicknamed Penelope or Penny for short) has the engine fit for a Yogo. Cursing was fine but she struggled immensely to climb any hill. We ended up stopping at nightfall at a small beach town about 2hrs north of Wellington for the night.

Stay to the Left Look to the Right

For those of you who incline to visit the southern hemisphere, let me first warn you that there are unforseen things that can really mess up your day.

As we all know, when you flush a toilet down here, it flows in a counter-clockwise manner. One thing you don't here too often is that your body also has to adjust to that counter-clockwise flow (Coriolus Effect, or something like that).

Through-out our first day in Auckland, we all experienced dizzy spells. Not the "Whoa, I feel dizzy" ones, but the ones where you loose balance, knock you to the ground dizzy. Example, I was sitting on the edge of my bed talking when I got a dizzy spell and fell strait to the ground. No joke. Funny as it was, it's also a little concerning if it were to happen on the street.

The hardest thing to do in Auckland was to cross a street. This is not because they didn't have traffic signals or crazy drivers. It was the fact that back in the States we always look left to check for traffic. Here, you need to check right first. Stay left, check right. That is the phrase we say to ourselves at every intersection.

Auckland is alright not my favorite city. Fun to visit but eh... there are better places in this world. Enjoy the clip.