Places To Go Part I

That title isn't strictly correct - it should be "Places we ARE going, and places we think we might go", but that isn't very snappy. Anyway, just thought I'd jot down a few ideas we're looking at, and then we can all have a larf when it doesn't work out even close.

The plan is to stay at Daniel's house for the first couple of days, and that's in Auckland. Amazingly, Google Maps has Streetview for just about everywhere in NZ, probably because it's got so few streets, but it lets us have a view of his place in case we get really lost. And that may include, just because we can, a trip to Rocky's Superette. Mmm, nice. Maybe a Lotto ticket! Everyone seems to have a 4X4 or ute kind of thing, for which there is doubtless some strange colonial name...

After that, it'll be time to pick up the camper which is going to be The Home for 21 days. Eek! Hopefully we'll still be talking at the end of that - we're unlikely to run out of topics, since neither of us can remember what we said more than two days prior! It's pretty well equipped, even has a shower and critically, a loo... but I expect we'll be on campsites with showers and stuff.

But enough of the fluff, where are we going to go that's proper 'oliday??

Coromandel looked interesting, Andrew suggested it from his mega-tour a year or two ago. There's lots to see there, but he described it as being even further back in time than the rest of NZ! So we're expecting pretty relaxed... Just looking at the Streetview pic below, taken from the peninsula to the west of Coromandel itself, this looks pretty typical for a NZ-scape. Hope we don't get bored with kind of thing! Hehe.

The plan after Coromandel is to head towards rels, around Matamata. This could be a bit complicated, because they have a farm, currently run by one of the daughters together with her husband, and a house somewhere else, where Neville and Gaye live now they've retired. The shot from around Matamata is of a farm just out of town, who knows if it's representative? I recall Neville telling me about the cliff he used to chuck the dead cows off when he visited us in the 60s, no cliff in evidence here!

After that, it's off to Lake Taupo, via Rotorua or maybe the less touristy Waimangu. This is a Big Lake, with lots to do, including, further down, the active volcanoes of Tongariro and the Tongariro Crossing. Honestly, just looking at all this stuff is getting me into a state of excitement.

From Tongariro etc. we're looking to head down towards the bottom left hand corner of the N Island, around Mount Taranaki. Wowser. Caitie lives around there, not sure where exactly yet, but we're planning to get to see her. She also has windsurfing equipment, and the possibility of waves, so could be an interesting day or so :-). Guess we'd better get the address...

And from Taranaki the plan is to head to the ferry at Wellington... We've got a ticket, with a booked (hopefully!) time, but apparently it's easy to change. Especially if you got held up getting off the beach because the waves were just too good to leave! And that takes us to...

Picton!! This place looks like a village! You can just see the ferry over the back there. We plan to hang around the north of the island including Abel Tasman National Park, with Nelson as the Big Town in the neighbourhood. I think that'll do for now...