Labour Day Weekend

This past weekend was a long one (Labour Day is the 4th Monday in October down here), and we managed to take full advantage of our three days off. 

First up was checking off the last big item on our To Do After Moving list - we bought a car!

This baby comes fully loaded with new tires, a tape deck, and only 193,000 km (about 120,000 miles) on the odometer.

We found this 1999 Toyota Vista Wagon at a dealer in Devonport. It met all our requirements - less than 15 years old, less than 200,000 km, and less than 4,000 NZD. Oh, and it's a brand/name we recognize/know/trust not to break or cost lots of money to repair and the A/C works. Also, Toyotas are so popular here that we can resell it for not much less than we paid for it. The best part is that we paid cash for it, so it is ours - no monthly car payments to worry about! Also, I happen to secretly love wagons, and you know I'm thrilled that it's green!

Coincidentally, my first car was also a 1999 Toyota - a little red Corolla. Of course that was in 2000...

We immediately put our car through the paces. The rest of Saturday was spent running errands that require a car, and then we met up with some friends Saturday night for beer and dinner (in that order).

Sunday we woke up early and we were off!

I have a feeling this place is going to quickly become a weekly tradition.

We started our day at the French Market in Parnell to pick up some road snacks. In true Megan and Rob style, we picked up some meat, cheese (Pierre Robert!) and bread for a snack and some wine for the evening.

We drove out toward the Coromandel Peninsula, and oh the sights we saw. We drove up the coast to just south of Coromandel Town, then headed East on the 309 Road, which turned out to be about 30km of windy, gravel moutainy roads (told you we put the car through its paces). We stopped for a short hike to see the Waiau Falls and then kept driving along the road, praying it was not a dead end (by this point we'd lost all cell phone reception and the GPS didn't recognize the 309 Road as a road).

Top: Views from the road. Bottom left: A sign for the "quirkiest attraction in New Zealand!"  Bottom right: What the Waterworks looks like from the gravel road. Not very reassuring, but apparently someone ranked it in the top 20 of something. I'll let you guess what that might be, but I'm pretty sure it involves tetanus.

 

After escaping the 309 Road with all our tires and axles intact, we drove down toward Hot Water Beach, as suggested by google. We had a vague notion of camping somewhere, so had packed blankets and pillows, and picked up all the other essentials along the way - flashlights, toilet paper, towels and wine. Hot Water Beach has a pretty fancy campsite, so we reserved a spot, parked our wagon, changed into our togs and grabbed a shovel before low tide.

Hot Water Beach is just what it sounds like - the beach has thermal activity under it (or something like that), so if you dig a hole during low tide, you have an instant hot tub! They are not joking about the "hot" part either - according to a sign, the water reaches temperatures of 140-170* F! In some parts, the water was bubbling hot, and I nearly burned my foot trying to take a shortcut. We were a surprised to see so many people there - this is the biggest non-rugby-related crowd I've seen in New Zealand!

From top left: Hot tub digging at Hot Water Beach; my foot after standing in the water for just a few minutes; sunset on the beach; Rob's new beach towel.

After the heat and the crowds got to be too much, we headed back to our lovely wagon for dinner (consisting of popcorn, goldfish, peanuts, chocolate and wine) and some rest. Unfortunately, we hadn't read the manual yet and so didn't realize that this car has a very specific way you're supposed to sleep in it. We chose the other way, and woke up thinking it might be time to buy a tent. We slept spread out on the laid down back seats and trunk. Apparently you're supposed to configure the front and back seats together into a much more comfortable bed. Next time!

Cozy in our wagon bed - at least at first