Postcards from the Road

Sunday 8th

I have a suntan already. Well, sunburn in places but the rest is kinda brown. Not bad for just a few days.

So today we rented a car and went out of the city to Coromandel Peninsula. Finally I got to see some real NZ. Auckland is fine and all but it's a kinda strange place. It's just a big international city that could almost be anywhere and it's not entirely sure just what it wants to be.. Driving the car was fine seeing as it's much like driving at home. But. And a big but, there are mountains between Auckland and where we were going.. Seeing as I'm scared of heights, that's not good. Really twisty turny roads as well. Halfway up one of them I had to stop and let Christiane drive cos the drop off by the road just scared me witless. The plus side of course was some spectacular views. You can't really describe just how breathtaking they are, how blue the water is, how green the grass is, how vibrant all the flowers and trees are. Even photos don't do it justice. We stopped off at a hot spring beach where you can dig a hole and sit in the hot water. We didn't do that though, just went to look. There were so many pretty towns we passed through that we stopped in for a bit. I had my first Hokey Pokey ice cream as well :D

Driving back was... yeah. Through those bloody mountains again. Every one we went through, Christiane would tell me it was the last.. until the next one came along. And all she did was laugh hysterically while I was swearing manically and trying not to notice the sheer drops into nothing we were just a couple of feet away from. Pfft! We made it back without any mishaps though and the route along the coast really was just stunning.

Pictures..

Our rather posh rental car

Hot water beach

Coromandel view

And another one

A lovely little place called Tairua

The view from the top of one of those damn mountains..

I think I'm pretty much over the jetlag now, the dizzy spells are thankfully lessening. Just keep falling asleep at stupid times of night. Like 9.20 in the evening which is rather new to me.. lol.