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| Here we are in front of Aucklands Xmas Tree. It is still set up even in early January. |
| Glenn's Journal 01-04-03 New Zealand Saturday morning and we are up early enough. The car rental place is dropping the car off at the hostel this morning at our pre-arranged time of 10:00 am, which also happens to be check-out time. We awoke around 8:30 am just to make sure we had plenty of time to get ready, including if we would have to wait in any lines for the shower or bathroom. We had a little wait this morning but not too bad. We were ready to go and right on time checking out at a few minutes to ten. We walked outside and only a few minutes later the agent from the car rental showed up. We spent a few minutes signing papers and reviewing the rules and off we were. Erin and I had agreed that we would head south towards the Bay of Plenty and hope we could find accomodation in Tauranga. Tauranga would be our first stop on the way to many of our major stops including Rotorua and Taupo. We had not had breakfast at this point and it was closing fast on noon and our stomachs were growling. We stopped in a town called Ngatea which is on highway 2 near the Coromandel National Park. We found a little cafe where we had lunch. While at lunch we spent the time talking about all of the places we wanted to see and try to predict what dates we would cross the ferry from the North to the South Island and vice versa. The road atlas of New Zealand that we bought yesterday was coming in very handy, especially with travel times and distances between cities. We prepared a tentative schedule that would have had us "running" every day. It only allowed for 9 days on the South Island and would have us driving and siteseeing every day. Way too busy!!! We prepared the tentative schedule and returned to the car where we continued on our way. During the remaining drive to Tauranga we discussed where and how we should spend the next 3 weeks in New Zealand. We did agree that the original schedule was way too much and that we should reduce the schedule to only the North Island. We would miss seeing our Swiss friends, Marcel and Eveline, but there was no other sensible way. We will have to visit the Soiuth Island on another trip. We arrived in Tauranga just after 2:00 pm where our first stop was the information center in town. We picked up some data on accomodations (the information center host told us that most places were full) and some "things to do" brochures. The host was nice enough to call a few places only to find them full. Erin and I had seen some hotels on the way into town that still had vacancy signs up so we returned there to check it out. The first hotel had a room available but at $85 NZ a night. We were hoping to pay less so we continued on. The next hotel had the "no vacancy" sign out so we continued on. The third hotel had one room left for $85 NZ per night and she had someone on the phone asking about rooms. We decided to take it so we wouldn't have to spend the rest of the day looking for a place. The room included a kitchen and tv and was relatively large by comparison. We agreed to two nights so we would have time to figure out what our new plans would be. We found our way to the local grocery store where we bought food for meals for the next few days. We would have chicken with rice tonight and pasta tomorrow night. We also bought breakfast and lunch items. It saves money in the long run and it is nice not to have to eat out every night. After the grocery shopping we returned to our room, put on our bathers (bathing suits) and enjoyed the pool and the view for a few hours. We read our books and otherwise took the rest of the day off. Erin prepared a wonderful dinner, which I thanked her for, and we watched a couple of movies on television before calling it a night. We needed a night to ourselves. It is just what the doctor ordered!! |