Day 18 Whangaparaoa

It’s time to leave Auckland, pick up the hire car and set off on a driving adventure round the North Island of New Zealand.  The hire car has turned out to be a little Suzuki Jimny which the hire car company has cleaned inside with what smells like baby wipes.  It has a very distinctive aroma!

It’s only a 40km drive to our first stop - Whangaparaoa, but we did have to navigate a motorway which in itself wasn’t really a problem; paying for the toll on the motorway was far more troublesome.  The hire car company said motorway tolls must be paid for in advance and gave little help with telling us how to do this.  What then ensued was a half hour comedy caper driving round Auckland, finding places to stop to see if we could get a phone signal in order to log on to the motorway app in order to buy credits to go on the motorway.  After numerous attempts, lost signals, frozen screens etc we eventually managed to buy our credits and set off on the short trip.  

There really aren’t many cars on the roads in NZ, driving is a much more pleasant experience than the whacky races of the UK.  We did have to chuckle to ourselves when we got to Whangaparaoa…….we hadn’t actually needed to toll credits.

We’re staying in a lovely little place on the seashore called Whangaparaoa Lodge which is like a little motel, it’s perfect for our one night stop.  There are 14 little apartments in the Lodge and a lovely couple called Marie and Adriaan are running it.  I must add that Marie and Adriaan are in their 80’s!  This is our first chance to do some washing so we have made full use of the big washing machine available.  Marie tells us that she’s looking after all the computer stuff and Adriaan is king of the laundry so whilst we bung everything in the machine, Adriaan tells us to go off and have an explore.  On our return, everything was tumble dried and waiting for us.  Clean clothes have never felt so good!

The beach was wonderful, kids were jumping of rocks round the cove and people were snorkelling and swimming.  There was a sign saying please don’t collect more than 50 cockles per person!  Life seems to be very laid back.

We ventured to Little Manly village all of 2 minutes away for some lunch.  The cafe had the smiliest waitress ever!  Andy had mentioned that men in New Zealand don’t wear pink (it just so happens that Andy really suits pink so has several pink shirts).  I hadn’t given this much thought, but sure enough, when in a shop, the first thing the man behind the counter commented on was Andy’s pink shirt! His wife then told him that he needed to get with the times!

We went for a drive, got lost, found a Marina, took photos, went out for tea at a steak house and came home to pack yet again.  Tomorrow we head up the coast to Russell where we are staying for 6 whole days - woohoo! Andy’s looking forward to finally being able to unpack!

 Whangaparaoa beach

 A bit blowy at a marina we stumbled across

 Yummy juice