Wow, I truly had no idea how varied, surreal, and simply beautiful the landscapes would be on this roadtrip... There's quite a bit to write about, so I'll break up the trip into a couple different posts over the next day or two. Long story short, I made the 3 hour trip back to Auckland today but I'll already be on my way back out to the town of Paihia in the Bay of Islands tomorrow via bus. I loved the place so much that I'll be getting a job there and staying for a while.

Oh, and I wanted to say thanks for all the happy birthday emails from everyone (I'm making a best effort to respond to them). I really appreciate the kinds words and thoughts. And yes, it was one of the best birthdays yet. :)

- MONDAY -

At about 4:00pm Monday afternoon, Laura and I picked up the rental car on our second attempt at finding the place. During the first attempt she stubbed her toe badly enough where it filled her right sandal with blood and minutes later broke the sandal completely by tripping again. The mutilation of her feet has become an ongoing theme. We managed to find the place the second time around and navigated through the downtown Auckland traffic back to the hostel where Angie and our bags waited. We piled in and hit Highway 1 heading north out of Auckland. After talking a bit with a guy at the front desk of the hostel, it sounded like our best bet was to stop off in Dargaville, just a couple hours north east. In the next few hours I got my first taste of how vast, green, and untouched the New Zealand landscape was.

After just 30 minutes of driving outside of the city, the highway quickly shrank down to just one lane in each direction. It would remain this way for the rest of the trip, regardless of where we headed. Something also worthy of noting is that we never again encountered a traffic signal after leaving Auckland. We rolled and winded through an endless sea of grassy green hills, sprinkled and patched with trees (many of which I had never seen before). Most of the trees looked similar to pine and palm trees. An odd combination of trees to see growing next to each other so frequently. It's times like these where I wish my vision was better than 20/20, for nothing limited your view other than your eyes themselves.

(Above - A typical view out the window of the car.
Right - After coming up with this idea for a picture, we found the perfect hill for it on the side of the road)

We traveled wide-eyed and in awe until about 7:00pm when we made it to the town of Dargaville. The town center looked like it was straight from the 1950's with single story, low ceiling shops lining the road with a style and construction quality that was fitting of the time period. We were one of 3 or 4 cars to be seen driving on the road here as we circled the center a few times checking out the accomodation available. In total, there were two motels and a hotel. The prices were reasonable, around $20-30 per person but we decided we'd save some cash by camping or sleeping in the car. With the sun soon setting, we wanted to make sure we were at a place that would offer a good view. What place better than the beach just a few Kilometers down the road? The single road into the beach actually leads directly onto the sand where you're free to drive around wherever you like. We stopped at the thought of our Toyota Corolla getting stuck in the damp sand. A man to our right walking up the road saw this and cheered us on, "Go for it, you'll make it!". We laughed, and got to talking to him a bit. He sounded like he was American, yet upon asking him if this was so he acted very offended. After joking with us a bit, he admitted with a grin to living in LA many years ago. He said he came out here to visit when he was younger (not quite as young as us), fell in love with the place and wrote a small check that bought himself beachfront property with a breathtaking view.

With the sun now dipping behind a mask of clouds sitting upon the horizon we made haste; parking the car a few meters up the road, grabbing our couple bottles of cheap "sparkling wine" from the trunk, and running down to the sand. Here we found a nice little cove nestled between some vegetation and palms that offered some shelter from the ocean breeze. We popped open the bottles, losing one of the corks in the wind overhead. Pointing out towards the open Tasman Ocean, we guessed where Japan, Australia, and Africa might be in relation to us as we sipped from our community bottles in the glowing light of the setting sun.

We cruised up the street a couple minutes until we got to a camp ground where we parked the car for the night. I managed to throw together the tent for the first time, all with just the dim light of a small flashlight. We spent the rest of the evening laying on our backs admiring the stars and pretending to point out the skewed constelations of the southern hemisphere's sky.

To be continued...