Whangarei Hotels
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Whangarei (fo-an-gar-i, but we say it wrong)
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We're now in Whangarei, New Zealand. We arrived here early this morning from Orewa, which is a small town just north of Auckland. Yesterday after our last entry, we ended up getting a great deal on a car rental. The guy was the owner of the company and needed to get this car to Christchurch by the 9th of Feb (but we don't fly out until the 15th) so we were a little hesitant to do it, but all the other companies were way more expensive (up to $1800!!!). We spoke to him again after checking out some other options and he offered it to us from now until the 9th of Feb for only $290!!!!!!!!! Split between us, wasn't expensive at all! Seems like we're doing him a favor so he was happy to give us a deal. Then we'll be in Christchurch a bit early, but might rent from this company for one or two days to see Kaikoura (just north of Christchurch). We already booked the Wellington ferry to Picton on Feb 9th, so he said we can drop the car off late that night or early the next morning. All we'll be rushing through is Kaikoura, so we thought if we rented from them for a day or two we could go back and see it still. We think this will work out well, we'll still get to see everything we wanted to without spending a lot. So yesterday while we were waiting to pick up our rental car, we went to downtown Auckland (might I add that we were carrying our very very heavy packs the whole day as well) to Prince's Wharf and saw the Princess Cruise Ship... it was MASSIVE!!! We also checked out the minus 5 degree bar, which is on the wharf too. The whole bar is made of ice (except the roof and floor). The cups we had drinks out of were ice, there were many ice sculptures, benches, couches, the bar, everything was ice! They laughed at us being from Canada and heading straight for an ice bar, when we're finally in a warm climate. I guess that was a little strange. But we got a cool pic of it (although it cost us $25!). After finally getting our car, we headed north of Auckland to Albany (a subdivision of Auckland) to pick up camping gear for our car (which must be the only car in the world that doesn't have back seats that fold down....although TJ is telling me that lots of cars don't do that.... I've never seen one anyway). So that was unfortunate, but we decided we got such a deal that camping would be ok. We bought foamies, blankets (which shead a ton we realized after), and a cheap and very tiny tent. And I should mention, that when we got our car, the owner dropped it off to us in the center of downtown Auckland, just after rush hour! So TJ bravely offered to drive (on the other side of the road!) for the first time. We somehow managed, while trying to find our bearing while trying to remember to stay on the left side of the road! It was interesting but he did a great job! I have yet to try but I will once we get into more of the rural areas. We had a couple near scrapes, but we're still in one piece and so is the car so that's good! After getting the camping gear, we headed to Orewa (it was pitch black and we couldn't find a campsite so we decided to stay in a hostel in Orewa). After asking the MacDonalds staff for directions, we found this hostel called "Pillows"... sounds nice huh?? But there was a van full of weird guys that stared at Jess when she went in to get a room. It cost us $49 and was a DIVE! Jess was worried our car wouldn't be there in the morning so we took almost everything out of it. She though the weird guys were going to steal it. She had a tough time falling asleep in the room because of the panic of possible car theft and the less than secure room (the door was all glass). She left the TV on all night (not sure why???) to make her feel better. Then when we woke up we realized it's a pretty nice place. It must have been the creepy guys that made her worry about the place. So she felt dumb in the morning. Anyway... then we left Orewa and made it up to Whangarei where we are now. It was a beautiful drive! So many lush green forests and valleys/hills. We took lots of pics. They were really curvey roads, so TJ had fun driving on them (much better than the Lethbridge drive). Once we got into Whangarei, we went to see the Whangarei falls (mostly because they were on a sign and we didn't know where we were but knew we wanted to see that!). They were beautiful! Now we are going to check out the Whangarei heads which are a series of gorgeous bays apparently. We'll also try and find a campsite early so we don't run into last night's situation again. We'll write again when we can!
   
Latest Comments (1)
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Quite the adventures! (reply)
Jan 23, 2007 21:18 EST by ljhartel
Pretty brave for sure driving in rush hour traffic. Is the car automatic? The pic of T.J. driving looks like his nose is burnt already.
Strange places always look better in the daylight.
The snow is melting here. Supposed to stay +0 all week. The snow on Sat. really must have been for you.Can't wait to hear of your next misadventures.
Mom H.
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