Head out north

After a good night in a comfy bed we woke up and first thing to do for my parents was to repack the bags in order to have everything in place when we moved to the car.

They had chosen Go-Rentals for their rental car and the friendly team offered to drop the car by the hotel around 11am, so we still had two hours to get ready and have breakfast.

Denny's was just around the corner and for old time sake (from USA trips at least ten to twenty years ago) we went over and had a big fry up and stack of pancakes.

This should give us enough energy for the day and after the car was handed over we left Auckland northbound by crossing the Harbour Bridge and drove the State Highway Number one towards a small town called Okura where we wanted to get out and adjusted to being outside of the big city, ie. take a walk, look at the sea and make plans on where to go next.

There was not much going on in Okura aside from a very hungry bird, that kept asking us for food while it followed us around the little beach at low tide.

Soon it was clear we wanted to further drive up the coast along smaller roads and our next destination was Orewa, which unknowingly lead us around the toll station which saved us a couple of quid.

We stopped by a supermarket, strolled along the beach and had an ice cream. A great start to an exciting road trip.

The drive was not always along the coast line, but when it was the views were wonderful.

After a couple of hours driving, just before Whangarei, we took a spontaneous detour (followed one of these brown tourist signs) to a peninsula with an oil refinery. It had a tourist information and a model of a pipeline. Not really the thing we were looking for but somehow interesting nonetheless.

At the tourist information in Whangarei we looked for activities and accommodation and quickly found that this was the area where the scuba diving is happening. My Dad and I really wanted to go diving once this trip (again for old time sake) and what better day to do this than on my birthday, which was going to be tomorrow.

Mami is not very much into Scuba Diving but could imagine to also enjoy the day out in the sun on a boat in the Pacific. Maybe go for a swim while we are under the water.

So we booked the tour to the Poor Knights Island for the next morning and also an accommodation near Tutukaka, from where the boat was going to leave.

It was not far from here to get to the Motel where we should have our first of many NZ Motel experiences.

These Motels are similar to Motels in the USA but feel more personal (they are usually independently owned rather than chains), you have cooking facilities and some other amenities and most importantly (for some) you get a little bottle of fresh milk for your tea.

We settled in to the large room pretty quickly and then drove down 5 km to Tutukaka (what a great name for a place) to make sure we would find the pier tomorrow morning (we should show up at 8am).

We quickly found the place, which also had a restaurant. After a little walk around the harbour and to wait until a table freed up we sat down and I ordered a nice, large Hamburger while the sun was setting over the harbour with its sailing boats.

Back at our Motel it was time to try my duty free purchase: A bottle of Laphroaig triple cask.

It was summer and even at night it was still nice to sit outside and enjoy a nice glass of smoky scotch and have a good chat.

The sky was clear and there was not much light pollution around, so that we could clearly see the stars. Of course they were a slightly different positions and we could not spot Orion but we really enjoyed the view and encouraged by the whiskies went to the sea shore,equipped with three cameras to take shots of the night sky.

What a great evening with an exciting day ahead. And what a great start for this trip.