Madonna
Trip Start
Feb 24, 2008
1
14
17
Trip End
Aug 24, 2008
New Zealand,
New Zealand
Friday, March 21, 2008
Once we were done getting the 411 on all of the gear, Kailey bit the bullet and got into the drivers seat. After a few stressful minutes for Amanda, you would have thought that Kailey was used to driving on the wrong side of the road. Haha just kidding, she had it from the start. But we immediately drove to a Denny's to get some breakfast. Oh Denny's. We got the nastiest orange juice. We have found out the hard way that they will make fake orange juice (that tastes like Tang) in New Zealand but then add pulp. So all of you who don't like pulp in your oj...have no fear, the pulp is not wasted. Yah, needless to say, we didn't drink much of it.
After our not so filling breakfast, we set out on the long journey to the Bay of Islands. Road tripping is such a blast, especially when you are in another country. Thankfully, our car had air conditioning as it was soo hot! We were dieing. We had to make a quick stop to change into our bathing suites we were so hot. Also, just to add to the heat, it just so happened that we decided to road trip on Easter Friday...so the roads were soo busy. Haha in fact, so were the gas stations! We had such a terrible experience at one! We had just left the city when we saw a sign saying expect delays, construction. So, like everybody else on the road, we decided to pull off and get gas. Haha this gas station was so dumb. To start, they didn't have pay at the pump so everybody had to go in side which held all who were waiting up brutally. Secondly, half of the the pumps would randomly stop working. And to top it, the guy in front of us in the line (who we were stuck behind) was dumb. Instead of him filling while his girlfriend went inside to pay, she sat while he pumped. Then when he went inside, he didn't even stand in a line. He stood in between the lines and just stood there. Dunno what happened there, apparently he got confused. Anyways, it took us an hour to get a tank of gas.
But! Once we were on our way, all was good! Just 2 crazy Canadians and the road...oh..and Madonna. Madonna is our car. We decided that it was a fitting name as we had never rented a car or drove long distances on the other side of the road. It was like we were "virgins" to driving. Tee hee. Corny but funny.
Many hours later, we arrived in the Bay of Islands. What a beautiful place! One of our favs. We parked the car and then headed to get food and wandered. After a few hours of this, we decided that we should find a place where we could camp over night. We ended up meeting a German couple who had found a good spot so told us where to go. To bad we couldn't understand them very well cuz we definitely never found it. Ya we just drove around for awhile with no success. By this time it was dark and we were ready for bed. We ended up spotting this random car that had the perfect spot right in front of a little bay which the best view. So we asked if we could join and then parked our car.
While we were setting up, our neighbor came over and informed that our rear lights weren't in working order. Way to go rental store. But on the upside, we started to chat with the guy and he was so neat. His name was Carl and he had been living out of his car for a year. For a living he was a bottle picker, but a scientific one. Haha or so he said. Nah, it was actually really cool. What he did was measure a certain distance and then count how many bottles he could find. His goal of this was to prove how bad New Zealand was for recycling. Over a bottle of wine that he supplied, he showed us all of his photo's which really shocked us. It was amazing how many bottles he would find in such small distance and just how much money he was making from doing this! Carl was at the time waiting for a letter from the prime minister of New Zealand in regards to the matter, as he sent her his data and some photo's. He was a very kind and interesting man!
After chatting with him for a bit, Kailey and I hit the sack falling asleep to a perfect view.
