Down Under - The Beginning

- Storing the motorbike for the winter

The weather is a bit of a gamble; it should be mainly dry today, but for tomorrow the forecast is gloomy.
I leave Haus Margarethe this morning after having paid 162 Euros for nine nights bed and breakfast. On my way towards the bridge over the Rhine river at Rheinau it starts to rain - so far for the German forecasters. But luckily it stops on the French side of the river. Through Alsace and Lorraine, then back for a short ride into the Saar region of Germany, and then once more into Luxembourg. But this time I am taking the motorway. Considering the forecast for tomorrow, I am keen to cover as much distance as possible today.
The motorway reaches Belgium, and the cities of Arlon, Namur and Charleroi rush past. At Mons it is getting dark. From here I reckon I can reach Calais in just over two hours. Sally, my trusty old GPS, lists a campsite among the hotels in downtown Mons. Normally that means that the campsite offers accommodation on site in caravans or huts. But not this time, it's just in there because the guys creating the accommodation list for Garmin Belgium were just not very good. But the friendly warden directs me to a decent and cheap hotel around the corner.
Next morning to my surprise the sky looks very threatening, but there are just a few drops of rain on the bike. That is great, considering that the forecast was for torrential downpour.
I don't linger around - better make the best out of this dry weather. By 9.30 I am on the road again and via Tournai and Dunkerque head for Bologne-sur-Mer. I am there at 2 pm, and the weather is nice and sunny, though extremely windy. Sometimes I think the gale will blow me and the bike right off the motorway.
Being here so early allows me to check something out for my mate Nick in Clermont-Ferrand; he is a sucker for Lucozade and that stuff is not imported into France. But 15 miles north from here, at Calais, is the giant Cité_Europe supermarket - which was just built for the British tourists that swarm that place. I know there is a British Tesco superstore inside it - and Tesco in the UK sells Lucozade. Thus my expectation to find the stuff at Calais, too. I head up north, and after 30 minutes reach that giant shopping complex. It is completely flooded with Brits. Most people don't use ordinarily shopping trolleys, they use massive flatbed pushcarts to carry away the booze by the pallet.
I find the Tesco superstore - and I don't believe my eyes; this is not a Tesco superstore, this is a prohibitionists nightmare! Inside the entire store you find not a single product that does not contain alcohol.

The place is crammed full of shoppers. Prices are given in Sterling, with the price the goods cost in the UK right below. Flatbeds loaded perilously high with booze are rolling past me. I suppose the store should consider to offer the use of forklift trucks to its patrons.
However, as they sell no non-alcoholic products here my quest for Lucozade in France has failed. Sorry, Nick.
Just before 4 pm I am back at the ferry harbour. The boat is on time, but I can already see by the way they tie down Kitty with three sturdy straps that the weather conditions out at sea will be pretty rough.

But when the catamaran gets out there, I am quite surprised how well that ship is handling the rough seas.
My plan once on the English side are simple. Go to Canterbury and stay overnight in the youth hostel. But the hostel is full. I try a few B & B's - they are full. I try two hotels - they are full. At the last hotel I ask the receptionist what on earth is so attractive on Canterbury during the last week of October? "Well," he replies, "it is Saturday night. They just come out of the woodwork."
And for the first time I realize that I probably never before arrived in this town on a Saturday before. Of course, I now realize that Canterbury is a popular town for tourists. I decide on the spot that next time I arrive in England on a Saturday I will go to a place like Faversham, Sittingbourne or Ashford - places far lower on the attraction scale of the average weekend warrior.
I ride south-westwards those few miles to Ashford - in the dark, which I really hate - and easily find a room at a hotel there. Silly me.
Next morning I take an easy ride to Newbury, where Martin is working the Sunday shift. We agree to meet later at his place, so that I can do some shopping and clean the bike in readiness for hibernation.

- 137250 km on the bike

I do my washing at Martins place, pack my bags ready for the next stage of my trip, confirm the flight for tomorrow and then we are out for the pub - my last night in this part of the planet.

- The journey to the Far Side of the World

Next morning Martin gives me a ride to Newbury railway station. I take the train to Reading on from there with one of the every thirty minute leaving coaches of the Heathrow Express company to Terminal 3 of one of the biggest airports in the world. Size of course does not matter with airports - if you know one, then you know them all.
Security is strict and for transcontinental flights you have to be three hours before take-off at the airport. I don't like commercial flying very much, especially not long-haul. But I have to say that Air Newzealand, my carrier, does a pretty good job. The legroom is ample, even in pauper class, the food is actually fit for human consumption and the in-flight entertainment system second to none. Here is a picture I shot over Greenland:

But in spite of the entertainment and the views it is still hard to ride out the 11-hour leg to Los Angeles. Even harder to stomach is the usual and extremely unfriendly attitude of the US customs towards anyone who has the audacity to enter this Land of the formerly Free without a US passport. Even though my stay is just four hours I have to go through the entire visa-waiver process, collect my baggage and check it in for my connecting flight. This of course entitles me to leave the airport, so I take a brief stroll outside - it is evening here, about 6 pm, on still this very same Monday, which began for me at 7 am British time - 18 hours ago.
The connecting flight to Auckland is on time and takes off at 9 pm LA time. Another 12 to 13 hours to traverse the entire Pacific Ocean, but again Air Newzealand does a really nice job.
It is night on most of the flight and I can just follow our progress on the TV screen - a thin green line slowly creeping over this vast expanse of water.
Shortly before reaching New Zealand the aircraft crosses the datum line - what is for me a Tuesday morning immediately changes to a Wednesday morning. When Phileas Fogg went around the world in 80 days in the opposite direction, he gained a day slowly and without perceiving it. In our modern world I loose mine with a bang.
In the early hours of this cloudy morning the aircraft descends towards Auckland airport. The time difference between this part of the world and the UK is about 11 hours. Luckily I normally get over the jet-lag quite easily.
I get the first visual impressions of my new home for the next few month and the English lady sitting next to me takes the words right out of my mouth: "New Zealand looks like Ireland".
In spite of the dull day the green of the land is only just matched by the sparkle of the sea. I am quite pleased with what I see.
At 8 am local time I am on the ground and have picked up my baggage. Auckland International airport is to the south of Auckland city. I need wheels and having done a search on The Web recently I found that the Ezy rental company is the right place for me to start.
(Postscript 2014: The company is now called "Jucy" Rentals)
But first I must convince the custom official to let me into the country for this long time.
The guy is fairly big and I know he is gay. His senses are obviously no less sharp than mine, and I start thinking that he is questioning me quite longer than anyone else - the fellow is hitting on me! After over thirty hours of travelling I certainly have other things on my mind than getting laid before I even set a foot outside the airport. After over ten minutes the chap gives up. I call the Ezy guys and within minutes they pick me up. The car they use for that is already the one I ordered on the phone - the "El Cheapo" option. It turns out to be a Nissan Bluebird, full of dents and scratches, but exactly what I want; a vehicle that can not be recognized as a rental.
The rental charge is 30 dollars per day - 15 Euros. You may wonder how that is possible? The answer is simple: motor vehicles in New Zealand are extremely cheap - because New Zealand is the vehicle dumping ground of Japan. Every month thousands of used cars are shipped from Japan to New Zealand. And they are cheap to buy in Japan, so prices here are also moderate.
I have as yet to get me a map, but all I need for now is a motel to crash out and have some sleep - I hadn't had any for 40 hours.
I take the Nissan and ride towards the town. Parallel to the main motorway no. 1 I find the Great South Road, which has plenty of cheap motels. I book myself into one, have one last pipe outside to celebrate my arrival Down Under and then go to bed at noon - and sleep for 17 solid hours like a stone.

- Getting under way Down Under

Next morning I am fully rested and feel absolutely no jet-lag. I take a tour of Auckland; the city is massive in its expanse, about 40 km wide and 80 km long. But only about one million Kiwis live here, which is about 25 percent of the population. The city looks pretty much like a city in the United States; wide multi-lane roads, a sprawling suburbia with lots of cars, no roundabouts and no public transport worth mentioning. The style of the buildings is American, i. e. low quality, bad insulation, easy prey for burglars and all without cellars or heating systems.
But the Kiwis themselves are a very friendly, open minded and easygoing bunch. They may like to live a bit in the American way, but they do not believe that everyone who lives or thinks differently is a terrorist with the sole ambition to destroy their country.
At St. Lukes street I stop at the shopping centre of the same name and have a closer look; yes, there is a food emporium with Chinese, Japanese and New Zealand restaurants plus the usual U.S. junk food chains. New Zealand food appears to be a close relative to British food - the fully cooked breakfast they serve here for 15 dollars is fantastic - especially if you consider that one Euro equals two New Zealand dollars. Of course the fully cooked is not really the healthy choice. But they serve it all day and one such breakfast is all the food I need in 24 hours, so it won't kill me.
Most Kiwis I talked to back in Europe assured me, that Euros will go a long way in New Zealand. That is generally true, but not always; the cheapest mineral water for example costs nearly two dollars per bottle - in Europe it costs 17 (Euro-) cents. Any alcoholic beverages are about double the price of any EU country.
After breakfast I buy myself a roadmap (you need two, "North Island" plus a street plan of Auckland, together 60 dollars - again much more expensive than in the EU) and a copy of the "Trade & Exchange", a weekly magazine well known for its vehicle adverts.

[Postscript 2011: Trade & Exchange has been acquired by the auction house Sella in 2011, so I have updated the link]
[Postscript 2016: Sella has gone belly-up this year, so I have pointed the above link to another magazine doing vehicle sales]

I timed my arrival well; today is Thursday, and that is the day the magazine is published.
My plan is to buy me some sort of van or MPV, and kit it out so that I can sleep in it. For this purpose Auckland is the place to be.
But first I drive a bit up and down the city. I want to get a feel for this town and the country.
The beach picture above is from Kohimarama beach off Tamaki Drive, one of the countless beaches that make Auckland such a nice place. While lazing at the beach I read the "Trade & Exchange". I find that there is a company in the Onehunga suburb that does car auctions. The Kiwis I met in Romania told me that the cheapest way to get four wheels here would be via an auction. And tomorrow this company, Hammer Auctions, is auctioning commercial vehicles and vans. Though it is already after 4 pm I decide on the spot to drive there and have a look.
I can have a look at the cars that go under the hammer tomorrow; among the 18 vehicles that are for sale are three Toyota Estimas. This is what the Toyota Previa is called in this part of the world - an ugly duckling, but functional. The salesman explains that if I pay the asking price I can buy a car now and it won't be auctioned tomorrow.
These Estimas are about what I was looking for; an 8-seater MPV that I can easily convert for my purposes, but still handles like an ordinary passenger car.
I have a look at these cars; the first one is overpriced at 6000 dollars. The second one had a frontal accident and is in need of some bodywork. The third one looks quite good, but has no WOF ("warrant of fitness"), similar to the British MOT or the German TÜV or the French contrôle technique). The asking price is 2500 dollars. I thoroughly check the car and I can not find any mechanical fault that would fail it the equivalent test anywhere in Europe. I take it for a test ride, and the car drives impeccable. But still I have my doubts; why wouldn't the owner just take it to a testing station, have it WOF'ed and thus increase his chances for a sale dramatically?
Anyway, I'll have it as it is just what I wanted. I sign the paperwork and have now 24 hours to fork out the dough after leaving a deposit of 500 dollars. The purchase through the auction house also eliminates the possibility that the previous owner may have secured a bank loan against that vehicle (yes, down here banks accept a motor vehicle as security); they guarantee that all loans have been repaid. If you buy a car from a private owner, you must ensure yourself that no loan is still unpaid against your car.
Now, that was unexpected. After just 36 hours (of which I was 17 hours asleep) I have already sorted the car out.
The maximum money one can draw from a cash machine here is 800 bucks. I draw the maximum of both my cards and will get the rest tomorrow.
This proves to be impossible, as I can only draw that value every 24 hours, but the salesman is easy going; I can pay the rest tomorrow. So I have more time to explore Auckland. I end up north of the city at the Westgate shopping centre. They have a fine movie theatre there. I watch "An Inconvenient Truth" - a highly recommendable climate documentary - it just comes 120 years too late.

How to license a motor vehicle in New Zealand:

Licensing a motor vehicle in New Zealand is fairly straightforward. The vehicle must display two licenses in the window (three if it is a diesel). The first one is the WOF (warrant of fitness), which is the equivalent to the British MOT or the French contrôle technique or the German TÜV. It is issued by many garages and is valid for six month from the day of issue. I strongly advise you, not to have the test carried out by a garage. Go to a dedicated WOF testing station that does not carry out repairs. They are usually a bit more expensive, but you can be certain that you get a fair deal; they won't find imaginary faults in order to entice you into commissioning an expensive repair job with them.
The checks they do on the vehicle are just like in Europe; brakes, suspension, lights, bodywork etc. and will cost around 45 Kiwi-dollars.
The next sticker in your windscreen is the registration license. You can get that at any post office. You can buy three, six or 12 month license stickers. The fee varies depending on the size of your engine. Expect around 300 dollars per annum for an average vehicle.
Petrol in New Zealand is comparatively cheap, because the fuel tax is low. And fuel tax-burdened Europeans will probably not believe me when I say that in New Zealand there is no fuel tax on diesel oil at all! Yep, none whatsoever. Diesel costs less than a dollar per liter (i. e. less than 50 Euro-cents or about 34 UK pennies).

Great, you'll say, let's buy a diesel car. Well, there is a catch; you have to buy your mileage. Sounds weird, but that's how it works. Go to the post office and and tell them how many kilometers you want to buy (in chops of 1000 km). Have a look at my displayed stickers:

At the bottom is the registration license with the license expiry date, above it is the distance license valid from the cars 165804th kilometer through to its 182804th kilometer. You may wonder why the figures are not round to a thousand clicks: that is simple, the car was imported as a used car in 2003 from Japan and had to pay the license just from its arrival onwards.
You must check the mileage on the clock with the mileage on the sticker when you buy a car; if the previous owner did "overdrive" the pre-paid kilometers, than you have to pay up for that. At around 30 dollars per 1000 km that can be some expense. Of course, expired license, lack of WOF or an "overdriven" distance license are all good arguments for lowering the purchase price of the vehicle.
There is no legal requirement for any vehicle insurance in New Zealand, but of course it is highly recommended to take one out. Look up the Yellow Pages under "Insurance brokers". As a European and fresh arrival here you are regarded as a high risk driver, even if like myself you have a 29 years no claims bonus at home. Expect to pay around 500 dollars per annum just for third party cover, but that should be planned into the budget - for the peace of mind.
Note that the Land Transport Authority will send you your ownership document by post, so you must have a valid postal address for that. I used the address of my motel in Auckland for this, and it worked fine.

Next day I pay the rest on the car, plus the auctioneers fee. All in all 2770 dollars. That is not much for that much car. It is 10000 km "overdriven", i. e. it has 10000 km more on the clock than the diesel mileage sticker in the windscreen covers. When I buy my diesel sticker at the local post office I am told that I have to pay for the tax dodging of the previous owner, even though the name and address of the previous owner are clearly on the guys computer screen. "That is how it works here" I am told. Well, we'll see about this braindead regulation very soon...
Next I take the van out to the Westgate shopping centre - there is a WOF station there that is open seven days per week. Like myself the guy that does the inspection there can not find anything wrong with my Estima - it passes without a single fault.
As this deal went much faster than expected I decide to leave the car at the auctioneers place and continue over this weekend with the rented Nissan. But before that I buy at the local Mitre 10 hardware store a couple of things to get comfortable in the van; a curtain rail and curtain, a windshield sunshade and a sleeping bag. Now, the sleeping bag is a problem: at present it is fairly cool here, so a warm bag is necessary. But in a few month it will be scorching hot. Then a thin summer bag is required. I solve the problem by buying two summer bags. While it is cool I just slip into both of them one over the other.
They don't have air mattresses, but at a camping store a few miles up the road I find that item, too. After changing the Estima for the rental (I wouldn't get a refund for an early return from the rental company) I spend the weekend sightseeing Auckland and going to the movies.

- Northland, the subtropical part of New Zealand

On Monday I return the rental (still two days early) and get a cab to the auctioneers. Cabs are cheap - the kilometer goes for around one dollar.
I get into my Estima and head straight north out of Auckland. This "Northland" is the warmest part of New Zealand, a subtropical peninsula of about 350 km length and 100 km width. I drive about 100 km out of town and stop at a car park north of Helensville. Here I do a few modifications to the van; behind the front seats I rig the curtain rail and curtain, so that I can shut off the view into the rear section of the van. The four side windows of the rear compartment I just disable by sticking black self-adhesive foil over them. They are now completely blacked out. I can't do this with the rear widow - alas, I have to see something in my rear mirror when driving. For that I use the sunshield I bought and attach it to the rear window using Velcro straps. This way I can easily remove it in the morning. I place the air mattress on the reclined right side of the seats - they form a perfect bed support, seven feet long. The left seats I leave upright, so I can use them normally. My new home is ready and decorated. It gets dark around 8 pm, so I just stay in the car park and try my new bed - and sleep like a rock.

Next morning I drive on and the first hills of this fantastic countryside arrive. On the first one I notice that my engine overheats. Ooops, have I just found the reason why the car was so cheap?
Downhill the temperature returns to normal. I check the water level in the radiator expansion bottle - all is normal. I try again - and again the needle of the thermometer rapidly advances towards the "red" zone. I can't continue up this hill without blowing my head gasket. I have just passed the point where highway no. 12 forks off from highway no. 1. I return to the crossroads and instead of continuing on HW 1 I take HW 12. The nearest town is the small village of Maungaturoto. I stop at Colin Smith's garage just at the edge of the village. John, one of his mechanics, has a look at the van. Either the thermostat has jammed in the half open position or the radiator is clogged. Well, I tell them to order a thermostat and will come back tomorrow to have it fitted.
I drive through the town and a few miles on find a sign for a camper park at Pahi beach. The place is excellent, directly on the seafront with a kitchen, TV room and water and electricity for each lot - and all for 10 dollars per day.
These camper parks offer all one needs, even a coin-laundry. Why do people buy or rent luxurious camper vans for lots of money, while the numerous camper parks have all amenities? Why do they need a toilet on board, a kitchen and a shower cabin? Complete nonsense, as the campsites offer all this and much better than the cramped vans. All you really need is a bed in your camper van.
Next morning at 8.30 am I am at the workshop. The thermostat has arrived and John, one the four mechanics, sets out to replace it. This is not so straightforward as it sounds due to the awkward design of the Estima; the engine is mounted under the front seat. That is good for weight distribution, but bad for servicing and repairs.

It takes about two hours to replace the thermostat. A test ride afterwards shows, that we went into a dead end with the thermostat - the van still overheats.
But now Colin himself has a look - 42 years in the trade is a lot. He just looks at the car while the engine is ticking over. He just utters one sentence: "Your viscous coupling on the radiator fan is busted".
John removes the coupling; yes, the resistance when rotated is far too weak. John recharges the oil filling of the coupling. Now that feels much better. He replaces the coupling, but him and myself are pessimistic. The fan can not really make such a big difference.
But on our second test drive we find to our surprise that Colin was spot on. The needle of the gauge remains in the normal position on even the toughest climbs.
I am very pleased with Colin and his team. If New Zealand wouldn't be such a nice place, I would suggest he should emigrate to Spain. A full blooded real mechanic could make a fortune there, if the average Spanish spanner monkey is as good as the morons from Motormania.
By 2 pm my Estima is fine. John does a full flushing of the system and refills it with the correct fifty-fifty mixture of antifreeze and water. 530 New Zealand dollars change their owner - quite cheap if you consider that John was five hours at work on my motor.

Having my car troubles sorted I have now time to explore this fascinating countryside. Strange birds and even stranger plants live here - I wouldn't know the first thing about them. But one thing I know is that the entire peninsula in 1880 was covered by massive Kauri tree forests. But they were in the way of the newcomers from Europe who wanted to farm here. In just 60 years the entire Kauri forests went into the local sawmills. And the place to visit for this sad story is the exquisite Kauri museum near Matakohe just off highway 12. The place is fantastic and an absolute must for every visitor here.

I arrive just before 4 pm at the museum. It closes at 5.30 pm and I realize immediately that I should have planned in much more time. But the volunteers running that splendid place just sign my ticket, so that it is valid for tomorrow as well.
So next morning, after a terrific breakfast at "Bee-Jays" in the centre of Maungaturoro I am off again, to see the rest. You may think you have seen a chainsaw, but have you ever seen one with a ten-feet blade? The Kauris were massive trees, and each took centuries, even millennia to grow, so man simply adapted the size of his tools of destruction.
I spend the entire day inside the museum - and an excellent day it is for it, because on the outside in spite of the sunshine a gale is blowing of over 100 miles per hour. In the evening I see on TV that they had to evacuate the Sky Tower in Auckland - it was shaking so violently that people inside the tower got seasick!
There is also an advert on from the Automobile Association of New Zealand; they have compiled a brochure called "101 Must-Do's for Kiwis". This brochure lists all the things a Kiwi should do and see in his homeland. Of course I get myself a copy and will use that as part of my personal "Must-Do" list.
In the evening I get under my van and cut the wire that links the odometer pickup with the odometer itself. I connect a cable to the pickup and route that cable through the engine compartment all the way to the driver set. I connect a flip-switch to the cable and can now switch the odometer of the van on and off at will. To recover the 400 dollars diesel tax the NZ government decided to collect from me instead of the criminal previous owner I will have to drive at least for the next 10000 km without clocking up any mileage. That's how we handle an unjust bureaucratic regulation where I come from.

Next day I begin my journey up the west coast of Northland in earnest. One thing to do according to the "101" is to see the last Kauri trees in the Waipoua Forest just north of Katui on HW 12. When I arrive there I find lots of cars, campers and busloads of people there. I don't even stop - I have seen so much Kauri in the past two days that I can't be bothered to join the crowds to see the last survivors of mans spree of destruction. By 11 am I arrive in Rawene. Here the Waihou river forms a wide bay, called Hokianga harbour. I stop at a cafe just outside the ferry port. Pragmatic as the Kiwis are, the cafe owner has hung up a ferry timetable. There is one crossing over in 30 minutes, and the owner assures me that he can supply a "breakfast to go" with time in hand to catch the ferry across Hokianga harbour.
And the guy is as good as his word. I munch the brekkie on board the boat which gets us over in about 15 minutes - quite a pricey affair for Kiwis at 14 dollars.
A few miles on I take a detour to Ahipara at the southern tip of Ninety Mile Beach. From here the beach goes all the way up to the northern tip of New Zealand at Cape Reinga. In Europe such a perfect beach would be crowded with sun seekers. But in empty New Zealand the beach is empty, too. Actually, it is perfectly OK here to drive all the way to the cape on the beach instead of the road, but it is recommended that you should have a four-wheel-drive car and know the tides. For my clumsy Estima that is no option.

If your vehicle is not suitable to drive on the beach you can still book yourself on one of the 4 x 4 coaches that are available at most camper parks. If you have followed my journey you probably know already that beaches and the sea are not for me - I just skip the lot, including Cape Reinga. The last 15 miles of the road up there beyond Waitiki Landing are gravel.

[Postscript: as of 2010 the entire road up to the cape is fully tarmac, so no need for anyone with an ordinary car to be concerned any more.]

I am heading east on HW 10 towards the Bay of Islands. There are 144 islands dotted into this bay. I stop at Kerikeri, the oldest village in all of New Zealand, and find a surprisingly quiet camper park located virtually in the town centre.
My Estima is running fine for the last days and the only thing that could work better is the air conditioning. I had that thing topped up in Auckland (always a wise thing to do on older used cars) with refrigerant, but the pressure readings showed that it was a rather inefficient system. In these moderate temperatures (around 72°F.) the system is OK, but I suspect that once it gets warmer it may get overwhelmed. It also appears that the rear brakes are in for new shoes.
The Bay is very popular with tourists and the camper park is already full to capacity this early in the season. I wonder how this is looking nearer to the Christian religious bank holidays in December.

Next day I just drive a few miles south on HW 10 and then take a short diversion to Waitangi. The beach location is so nice, that I decide to stay there, enjoy the sea breeze and read a book (Mr. Putnam's excellent biography of the life and work of Abraham Lincoln, published in 1908).
Late in the afternoon I drive a few more miles towards Kawakawa and find another camper park directly at the shore of the bay where I stay for the night - what a splendid way to lay waste to a gorgeous day.

Kawakawa has nothing really that could attract the crowds. But the famous Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser had chosen that village as his Down Under retreat in the 1970's. And he designed for the town the mother of all public loo's - the Hundertwasser toilets.
I am certain that I could design a much more spectacular public convenience (and so could you, probably) - but art is like expensive fragrances, designer clothing or fine jewelry; it does not really function any better than your usual can of Old Spice, it does not suit you better than the ten-Euro jeans from the supermarket, nor can you yourself distinguish a fine diamond from a cheap imitation stone. No, it is just the knowledge that it was that famous artist or designer who made it, or that you just paid ten grand for something you yourself can not distinguish from something similar offered for ten bucks that makes you feel good about possessing such things (myself, of course, am entirely excepted from such follies). The same goes for that designer-loo; you can have a pee there and I will admit that it is more interesting than a regular concrete slab place, but I can't see any more in it. Alas, I do not think that this place deserves its presence in the "101" list of the Kiwi Automobile Association.

Next day I drive south along the east coast on HW 1 towards Whangarei. There I decide on the spot to cross over to the west coast on HW 14. The weather is good, but the forecast is bad; already there are high winds and torrential rain hitting the country further south. Northland is currently the only part of the country that is still sunny. But the bad weather will come north eventually and hit us here.
The best thing to do is to return to lovely Pahi Beach and sit it out there, so I book myself into that lovely motor camp for a couple of days. At Colin Smith repair shop I order a set of rear brake shoes, which John fits the next day. My gut feeling was right; the old shoes were worn paper thin. Another 190 dollars go into Colin's coffers for that.
Now I have time to work out, how much life here really costs. For one week Down Under I work out the following expenses:

The values below are given in 2006 exchange rates. Those exchange rates and prices will inevitably change over time.

The above list assumes that I am driving 2200 km in that week with the van. If I am lazing in the sun instead, then of course one has to deduct the diesel money from the total.
I think it is necessary to put the above list into perspective, so here is that list if I'd do exactly the same with the same car in the United Kingdom, paying UK prices for it:

One must also consider, that the purchase of a car would have been more expensive and that the repair jobs would have been much more expensive.

I spend the next days at the Pahi campsite and do excursions into the countryside. Though there are supposed to be Kiwi birds in the area, the only one I have ever seen are on these weird roadsigns:

I also do re-visit the Waipoua Forest and this time I am lucky: no busloads of visitors there, I have the forest nearly for myself. Look at this picture of a fully grown Kauri tree; can you see the girl wearing a white sweater, sitting on a rail at the foot of the tree? That should give you an idea of the size of that thing.

Just when I am done with marveling at the trees, a bus full of Korean tourists arrives. They take pictures of absolutely everything, even the parking lot and the "No dogs allowed" signs. I pity already their friends and relatives back home, for they will get inevitably bored to death when being forced to watch their dreadful holiday snaps.
I also do a trip back to Auckland to pick up my ownership document. The Land Transport Authority of New Zealand only delivers these documents by post, so you must have some postal address to have it sent to. I solved this problem by having had a word with the motel owner on Great South Road when I bought the Toyota; he had no problem with me giving his address as mine. When I come back, two weeks later, all is fine; he has received the document and hands me the envelope.
The weather during the past few days was mainly acceptable up here, but on South Island there are places which on several consecutive days had 300 Millimeters of rainfall within 24 hours. Just for comparison: central England gets about 1500 Millimeters - in one year!
In the evening other campervans arrive at the site, and it is always exciting to see what kind of people will be around for the evening. It is astonishing how many Europeans are here for a long time. One evening I sit together in the lounge with a German (down here for four month), an English couple (six month) and two Dutch kids (were here last year for two weeks, decided that two weeks was far too short and have now returned for six month). The four Japanese tourists (two couples travelling together for a week) are pretty shocked when they realize that they are completely surrounded by a bunch of laid-back gypsies from Europe. They have travelled through Europe, too, but for any place they have been to for a few days and proudly tell us what they all have seen and done there, at least one of us counters them with something like "Ah, yes, I remember that place from when I hung out there for a couple of weeks...".
It is obvious that taking an extended timeout from work to see the world is rather not the thing the Japanese tend to do.
After my first three weeks in New Zealand (which feels more like three days, really) I am all settled and ready to tackle the long road to the south.

Below is the usual map with my GPS tracklog and some trip markers. I have omitted the ride from Germany to England and the flight from London via Los Angeles to Auckland. The tracklog begins at Auckland International Airport.