Warm Rain Ship's Log

Mail Delivery Kiwi Style

I've wanted to get a picture of this mail girl ever since I saw her delivering mail on a moped a few weeks ago. I'm always driving along when I see her - not the best time to try to snap a picture. I was pulling out of a parking spot earlier this week when she drove past me. I quickly pulled out my camera and took a few shots out of the front windshield (or windscreen as it's called here) while she whizzed away in front of me.

Some Observations About Driving in Kiwiland

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we're now pretty used to driving on the left side of the road. I still, however, occasionally walk to the left-hand side of the car to get behind the wheel. I look around stupidly then try to look casual as I walk around to the right side of the car - duh!

We've decided that there isn't a straight piece of road anywhere in New Zealand. All are very windy and two-lanes (one lane each way) with little or no shoulder. Because there's no shoulder, riding a bicycle around here would be scarier than heck. In fact, cruiser friends of ours sold their bikes at a swap meet after seeing the roads. The major north/south highway (route 1) is also only two lanes until you get just outside of Auckland where it widens to 5 lanes.

The oddest thing about the roads here is the lack of traffic signals. Here on the North Island, if you started at the top of the island at Cape Reinga, I believe that the first traffic light that you'd see would be in Whangarei, 168 miles south. Traffic flow is kept in line using roundabouts for turning traffic and slowing drivers down. Between Whangarei and Auckland there are probably 2 or 3 more traffic lights. There are plenty in the city of Auckland, and we haven't really been south of Auckland yet, but I'm betting that they cease to exist once you're out of the big city. I bet that the roads also narrow back down to two lanes as well.

Of course, the entire country of New Zealand has a population of approx. 4 million people (for comparison, the state of Washington has over 6 million people)! Towns in New Zealand are spread far apart with lots of rolling hills, sheep and cattle in between, so I guess wider roads aren't a priority. The best part is that the beautiful scenery makes driving here a pure pleasure.

More Kiwi Speak

Back in February I wrote a post, "Kiwi Speak 101" highlighting some of the words or phrases used here in New Zealand that are new to us. Here are a few more I've added to my list:

• Serviette - a table napkin. If you ask for a napkin here you'll get a funny look or a feminine product - yikes!
• Pressies - gifts or presents
• CV - curriculum vitae or resume: a summary of your academic and work history
• Boot - the trunk of a car
• G'day - Hello
• Cheers - Thanks or goodbye - normally said as you're parting ways with someone
• Panel beater - where you take your car to get it fixed after an accident - an auto body shop
• Cot - baby crib
• Tickie Tour - to sightsee
• Made redundant - laid off from your job
• Track - hiking trail
• Chilly bin - ice chest

and my personal favorite:

• Hottie - a hot water bottle

Cheers!

Camping Prep

Ok, those of you that know me well know that my idea of camping is The Hyatt hotel. I am, however, looking forward to doing some real tent camping on our South Island road trip early next year. In preparation we've been buying little things that we think we'll need out in the wild. Today we bought a lantern (flourescent bulb), a couple lightweight sleeping bags and a couple sporks! For those of you that don't know what a spork is, it's a spoon, knife & fork combined into one utensil. We bought them because of a running joke that we have going with our friend Barb, but I will pack them with our camping gear and give you an update once we try them out.

Short Road Trip South

A belated Happy Turkey Day to our friends & family in the USA. We just got back from a 4-day road trip south. On Thursday we drove to Warkworth to visit friends Russ & Florence. We entertained them by attempting to assemble our new-to-us tent. Friends Glen & Sally gave us the tent when they left New Zealand earlier this year and we plan to use it on our South Island road trip early next year. So, we thought we'd better try to assemble the tent to see what it looks like/how it's done before we really need to use it. It was very windy on Thursday afternoon so we began by laying out all of the pieces in the garage. Of course, no written instructions were in the bag with the tent. But Tom said, "Instructions? We don't need no stinkin' instructions!" Then the fun began. We started tugging and pulling on the tent to see what was up and what was down. Once the tent began to take shape it kept falling over sitting on the concrete in the garage. We needed to be able to anchor it in the ground so we moved it out onto the lawn where it swayed precariously and almost blew over in the breeze. We thought that Glen & Sally had given us a round dome tent but it's a huge rectangle tent - very roomy! Anyway after a lot of experimenting we finally got it assembled. We're so glad that we didn't attempt assembly #1 at a campground - we would have definitely provided a lot of entertainment with our antics!

On Friday we drove to Auckland to attend the Island Cruising Association's holiday party. We stayed in a hotel Friday and Saturday night - a nice treat (and I got several bubble baths!). The party was nice and included a visit by the big guy himself - Santa! We had a lazy Saturday morning before meeting friends Brian & Kathy for brunch.

After brunch we headed off to play tourist and went to Kelly Tarlton's Antarctic Encounter and Underwater World.  There we got to see penguins, including fuzzy little newborns - very cute. They also have a cool "aquarium" where the tank surrounds you so you've got fish swimming on both sides of you and over your head. It was a fun way to spend the afternoon. We headed home this morning (Sunday) and are now back aboard Warm Rain. We enjoyed our little get-away and look forward to doing more road-tripping later this year and early next year.