No Puns Up Our Sleeves
Trip Start
Oct 15, 2007
1
52
97
Trip End
Aug 24, 2008
Raglan,
North Island,
New Zealand
Friday, February 8, 2008
Kirsty had seen a vast AA building, which seemed to be the Kiwi AA headquarters, a little way off the main drag, so we found the nearest car park to it, panicked briefly when we realised we couldn't remember the height of the van as we passed under the gate of the multi-storey...but heard no sickening scraping noises, so all was well. Parked up, we realised Nick and Sabrina were a pair of cheeky buggers.
If you buy diesel in the UK, the price at the pump includes the tax. For those not running vehicles on the roads - such as farmers running tractors - a lower priced 'red' diesel is available. In New Zealand, diesel is diesel is diesel, and it's the same cheap price to everybody, so, if you're running a diesel vehicle on the road, you have to prepay, per kilometre, diesel vehicle 'Road User Charges' (essentially the fuel tax). This makes it a bit easier to charge different classes of fuel user different amounts of tax, rather than having to dye some diesel red and only supplying it to certain people.
However, if you're buying a diesel vehicle, it's as well to check that the RUC ticket on the windscreen expires at a mileage higher than the odometer reading! Ours didn't, which of course meant that when went to the Post Office to buy a few thousand more kilometres of allowance, we were paying for hundreds of kilometres which Nick and Sabrina had already driven. Live and learn.
That sorted, we went to the AA and debated joining at the most basic rate, and were a bit uncertain about just what to do. We went off to think about it, and upon our return, we dealt with a more senior member of staff who fiddled the system a bit, giving us a higher level of membership for twice as long for a very small surcharge (only about $10 more), which was nice of her, but then her sales stats were a bit better and there was no way we'd have forked out for that level of cover at full price.
We went to the supermarket and stocked up with a load of food capable of being cooked on the single burner stove in the van, and hit the road.
We drove out of town, heading south for Hamilton. Reading our guidebook as we went, we realised that the series of bays and clifftop lookouts around the coastal town of Raglan (near Hamilton) sounded nicer, so we made for there instead, taking a small diversion via the Bridal Veil Falls. We had no intention of going to the falls until Kirsty spotted a sign for them and thought they sounded nice. We wouldn't have had freedom like that on a tourbus. We sat by the falls, had a picnic and took some photos, then pushed on for the Raglan coast.
We found a nice layby on a promontory overlooking a pretty stretch of coast, and decided to ignore the No Camping sign. Someone else was doing similar, a nice American couple called Joe and Anna, with their bright yellow van, Sunshine. "Hey, it's Chunk!" came the greeting from these fellow veterans of the Auckland Backpackers' Car Market.
Not anymore she's not.
Jacob set about preparing a meal as Kirsty sorted through the bits and pieces in the back of the van. It was, as all the backpacker vans were, a homemade camper conversion. A shelf had been constructed in the back, and a futon laid on top. Under the shelf, crates of stuff were stowed, and an electric chilly bin (Kiwi English for cool box) sat, powered off the cigarette lighter, behind the driver. As it was the long wheelbase version of the L300, the sleeping platform didn't fill the back of the van, leaving the space between the two sliding side doors free to use.
Among the items Kirsty uncovered were: a load of kitchen gear, a tub of cutlery (most of which was covered in caked-on egg), crockery (ditto), a power cable should we splash out on a powered campsite, two bent badminton racquets, a golf club and a few balls, a library of terrible books (Ronald Reagan: My Early Life), a load of Cheerios (arbitrarily strewn throughout the vehicle), quite a lot of rubbish (empty jars and such), two folding chairs (one broken), a hammock (very torn), a bundle of glittery pipe cleaners and most of a sewing machine.
She gave Jacob the cleanest and most relevant of these finds for cooking and set about evicting all of the items that were obviously rubbish. One and a half large bin bags later, covered in grime, she had organised the remainder into some semblance of order....and dinner was served.
Unfortunately, at around the same time, a man in a pick-up turned up to warn us and the Americans that we shouldn't stay there overnight as the Police patrolled regularly. The sun had set, so the view was less important. With Kirsty in the back, clutching the pan of chilli pork casserole, Jacob moved the van to a less pleasant but more legal layby.
Having eaten, we went to bed, discovering that the standard of hygiene applied to the sheets was similar to that applied to the crockery. Although these stains may well not have been egg.
Eeeewww.
Tomorrow's most important mission is to find a launderette.
