Lisa: We’ve been driving North to Auckland since Monday along mostly 2 lane roads the Kiwi’s call “motorways”. There is never a long stretch of straight road, just when you think to turn the cruise control on a curve comes along bringing the speed down to 50kilometers per hour, a crawl compared to the 100kph speed limit to which we tend to exceed upwards of 120. Not too bad but on these little roads it feels like we’re flying.
The West Coast of the South Island is a sparsely populated paradise. Hours of driving through tunnels of fern encrusted living walls 20-25feet high, New Zealand Tree Ferns, Nikau Trees that look like sturdy stumpy palms, and the Rata Tree grow thick across the steep and jagged landscape. Mt Cook draws in the weather, keeping the clouds gathered close around her. It’s rare to get a clear view of the glaciers unless you hire a helicopter to take you above the cloudy skirts.
We stopped and ate “whitebait” at a beach shack down a gravel road. A cheerful fellow fried up the little fish, tiny black eyes still intact, with and egg batter. He chatted about various sights we could see along the road. The whitebait was perfectly served on fresh white bread and it all went down before I remembered to taste it. There was another stop at the Pancake Rocks, limestone rock formations that take a relentless beating from the Tasman Sea, named after Abel Tasman who was the first Brit to sight the land now called New Zealand long before Captain Cook made his adventures in the Pacific.
A 3 hour ferry crossing from Picton to Wellington across some decent swells in the Cook Straights made more than a few teenagers on a school trip sick. Akira explored the huge 9 story ferry and found a padded playground where he spent most of his time throwing his body around as the ship pitched and heaved.
Today we make the last push to Auckland, 5 hours driving and then we get to be spectators to Sally’s sport, sailing. She has several races this evening in Auckland Harbor an area of Hauraki Gulf. Looking forward to the ocean going part of the trip.
