Had a walk to the dam and back, and around the rowing areas last night - lots of high school boys waving boats around. The dam was started in 1940, finished in '47, and the diagram is pretty impressive - you wouldn't want to fall in right by the dam side, because it pretty much sucks all the water in and dumps it through the turbines, and example of which is on a pedestal outside the under-construction Community Activity Centre. We also discovered that this is the location for the World Rowing Champs, 27/10-10/11/2010 - in which case, where will they all stay?? I guess Cambridge and Hamilton will be pretty busy, not to speak of the road in here and the potential discomfiture of the residents.
There was only us and another van on the site last night, so no rush for the showers. These are pretty effective, and since I have the place all to myself, cavort around wildly unclothed. What else would you do?? This is our last breakfast in the van, so the porridge is fairly sparse, with not very much fruit. Jen's busy sorting things out, I make a stab at repacking my case and guessing what I'll be needing later.
The road towards Cambridge and Hamilton is not very eventful, this is bigtime dairy country and very wealthy it would seem. There's coal here too, as the big power station outside Hamilton attests. There's also a huge dried milk plant, that basically swallows the entire output of the local area and coughs out milk solids. Handy. it also raises the value of the basic foodstuff locally, which is good for the NZ economy. Pretty ugly atomic reactor type building though! Not everything is like that - the wall separating the railway from the road in town has a nifty kind of wave graphic built into it, which is cool.
BUt we're not here for the milk, we're here for the smoked eels!! North of Hamilton is Te Kauwhata, specifically Rata St, and we turn off - it's a surprisingly long way from Hamilton, and fairly close to Auckland. Good news for future purchases. The by now familiar roadworks, with guys operating Stop/Go signs in the village - we go through and find Rata St. However, no sign of the NZ Eel Processing Co - a number of in-use, new or empty warehouse type places, and at the end of the road is a Waste Transfer facility. Hmm, maybe when I called last night and got the voicemail announcement "Hi, this is Walt, I guess we're busy right now, leave your number and we'll get back to you" I should have left a message, since maybe they're out of business??
As we get back near the top of the road I spot a van logoed with NZ Eel Processing - looking good! The office is pretty informal, no other signs announcing their presence. I go in - Dale's there! Nice young guy… "can I buy smoked eel?" - "sure, how much do you want?" - "what units can you do it in?" - "kilos" - "I'll have a couple please" - "wanna see the plant?" - "of course!". So we get to meet Stu and the other processors, the big smoking chambers (different for eel, mussels and salmon), and even, when there's some doubt about the actual availability of eel, bump into a freshly smoked group of them, hanging like mottled leather strips from their rack. The deal is done, a 2kg batch with ice is packed in a poly box, and we're off, equipped with a price list for future reference. Really nice people. They do contract smoking too (like beagles??), so there's a guy who brings his batches of salmon, gets it smoked, takes it away and sells it at farmer's markets and suchlike.
The village has a reasonable-looking cafe, so we get a hit of coffee (or chocolate) and some buns, and browse the Auckland paper. A big deal inquest under way in respect of a 17 year old shot by a stray bullet in the apprehension of a shotgun-toting nutter. Sad story, incredibly unfortunate combination of circumstances. Hopefully not for us…
There's still lots of time before we need to be back in Auck, so maybe time for a detour… If we follow the Te Kauwhata road east, it heads out to meet Hwy2 and 20, and the coast. Yeah, let's do it! We can do some lunch there too. It turns out that around Miranda, the little town out there, is a major bird sanctuary for godwits and the like. The beach on the Firth of Thames is totally unspoilt, no campsites or anything - a few campers dotted along the edge of the beach, free-camping, but that's all. The beach is pure shell on mud - chatting to a Brit immigrant couple of 35 years standing, there's flounder out there, along with the usual snapper and stuff. They've got a larger camper with towable car just up the beach and, surprisingly, have never been to the South Island! Rectifying that when her sister comes apparently, this year. Good. They should.
Lunch is a boiled egg sandwich with lettuce, tomato, humus and a bit of salami for spice. It's wonderfully quiet, peaceful, expansive. So it's with regret we pack away the stuff for the last time. We admit to each other that we were both focussed on getting into Auckland, getting the van back, getting on with the Next Thing, and this stop has slowed us down and made it a proper trip again. Which is good, and bad - why leave?? This is so good.
Up Hwy 2, Hwy 1, the "real" motorway into Auckland, turn off at 453 Takanini. The BP station does diesel and LPG - only 3kg used, and I strongly suspect it wasn't actually full when we got it, because we've only used 1.6 in the last 2+ weeks, when we really started using it. The Maori LPG-filling-kiddie chats about rugby, especially England's latest loss to Ireland - sewn up, 5 mins to go, ahead after a JW drop goal, and Ireland score a try! Typical.
Rog the Dodgy van purveyor appears in a Merc Vito people carrier as we roll up. A cursory check on the van, we transfer our possessions to the Vito. Thanks and goodbye, BRG919 - you'll have a new owner soon I expect! Interesting to compare it to the new ones he has - they are the new Ducato, longer, wider, squarer, so they've gone for a larger table/bed in the back, with the kitchen/loo towards the front. Lots more space, especially for cases! That would have been handy. Likes to chat, this guy, and it continues into Auckland - used to surf and windsurf lots, has a couple of secret spots over Gisborne way for next time, just bought a large RV in Arizona which he'll keep for 10 years, does mountain biking now, lots of info on RVs generally. The roads aren't too crowded, and although he uses the GPS, I think I'd have been able to find my way unaided.
Daniel's in to help with the luggage, and his sister, staying for 2-3 weeks with hubby and 2 of her sons, Mischa 8 and Jascha 6. Lots of talk about the trip, which pretty much goes on all night, through the smoked eel starter (Jen likes this!!), the excellent Moroccan Lamb dinner, red and white wine, the just-picked peaches caramelised with rum and brown sugar and the definitive locating of the Southern Cross using a program Sergei eventually manages to install on his Linux notebook. We even fit in, at Daniel's insistence, a mid-prandial neighbourhood stroll, which is very pleasant, cool, ageing moon, stars, the kids bouncing around unleashed, desultory chat, the local Russian Orthodox church-barn-shed, huge bamboo plants, wild avocados, predatory cats. Auckland has a cool taxi-ordering service - they know your land line number location, so you just have to speak the time you want it and it's booked! We're all getting sleepy when the taxi arrives at 2 am - gulp, and it's goodbyes and see-you-agains and thank-yous and and and…
No comments:
Post a Comment