Blonde on a Road Trip

Today we set off on our road trip of New Zealand’s Northlands. First, Anneke had to drop off Vader at doggy daycare, and I took the opportunity to have a video chat with Mum, Dad and Phoenix (until he leapt off the sofa in protest).

We decided to clean up the car a bit before we spent loads of time in it and filled it with our stuff.

Anneke also took the opportunity to hoover out some of the dust and cobwebs that had gathered in and around her picnic basket and I cleaned the crockery and cutlery that came with it.

Once we’d hoovered the car, cleaned the windows and packed everything up, we headed for Warkworth for some lunch as it was now about 12:45.

We stopped at a café in the town of Warkworth, which seemed very busy despite many things having For Lease signs on. Is everyone planning to leave Warkworth?!

We placed our orders and chose a tactical seat opposite a lovely doggy who kept sticking his head out of the car window. He/she seemed happy enough despite no sign of the owner. Sounds (and looks) like someone I know…

We both couldn’t resist the filo option for lunch, and happily tucked into those after a busy morning of packing and car cleaning.

We finished up and headed back to the car, where Anneke realised her parking had been perhaps a bit haphazard. Oops…

Anneke was keen to stop at a Dutch cheese shop she’s often stopped at before, which boasts an impressive selection of Dutch Gouda-type cheeses and New Zealand-made ones too. We sampled a few, but my eye was caught by the aged Gouda, which I’d very much enjoyed during my time at the Cheeseboard in Greenwich. We walked away (we did pay) with a slice of that and some stroopwafels for the road.

Next door to the cheese shop was one of the quirkiest cafes we’ve ever seen. Lots of mosaic and cool murals. We’ll definitely be stopping here on our way back south!

As we drove further north, the hills were rolling and covered in an impressive array of pine trees. It’s all very lush at the moment, as spring turns into summer. Peak season for gardening work, so I’m very lucky to have Anneke for a week!

Annexe spotted a scenic lookout sign and asked if we should stop and take a look as we’d just come through the Brynderwyns (valley of hills) and the north coastline was just on view behind it. The road going through the Brynderwyns used to be a bit sketchy in terms of being steep and unstable, and was closed for a time after the bad weather a few years ago, which is less than ideal seeing as it’s the main road to get from north to south etc.

Anyway, we made it through unscathed (repairs all completed a while ago) and went to have a look at this ‘scenic lookout’. For something that was so well signposted from the road, the path to the lookout itself was very rough and ready and you’d miss it if you weren’t specifically looking for it. That said, there was a fancy-looking coffee van parked in the car park, so they must get a few people stopping for the view despite the lack of a formal ‘lookout point’.

In order to get the full picture, Anneke zoomed out, but this only served to horribly distort my arm. We found it hilarious anyway, the Elastigirl look.

Photos and videos never do it justice and seem to focus on the greenery rather than the stunning blues of the sea in the distance, which is what was catching our eyes.

We drove up to Uretiti (haha) Camp, our digs for the night, which sits behind Uretiti Beach and booked ourselves a campsite to come back to later. We drove around to check it out and it wasn’t very busy, so we were pretty confident we’d find a bay to pitch up on with little problem later.

After our mini tour of the campsite, we drove on up to Whangarei and went to visit Anneke’s friend Tracy, who has two dogs and several parrots as she kind of specialises in exotic bird care. The two dogs Colin and Jason were miniature poodles and Jason certainly had a lot of character. Possible doggy ADHD, which led him to jump off Anneke’s chair and spill her Coca Cola all over the carpet. Oops! Tracy and Lance (her husband) very kindly ordered an Indian takeaway in for us all and we sat and enjoyed that.

Their house is sort of set into a hill and backs onto a wonderful garden, with tall trees that come up to the balcony behind their living room. It’s a very peaceful place to live and they don’t go on holidays much anymore because after moving up to Whangarei about 9 years ago, they feel like home is pretty much like a holiday. Fair enough! I’d be inclined to agree…!

We had to be back at the campsite by 9pm anyway, but were aware that we needed to pitch our tent and get our beds set up before sunset anyway, so we bid our farewells at about 7pm and drove the 30 minutes back to the campsite. Despite our confidence earlier that we’d find the perfect pitch easily, it took us three laps in the car to choose where to sleep (many spots had since been claimed by RVs and other tents). We eventually, rightly or wrongly, chose a spot on a hill that was partially blocked off by cones but seemed nice and secluded and we doubted anyone would be patrolling and tell us off for camping there. After all, they did say “park anywhere”.

We started assembling the tent at about 8:10pm and were done and dusted by half past! Pretty good for a first assembly!

Once finished, we grabbed some snacks and our beers and sat on the chairs Sarah had kindly lent us as the sun went down.

Clear skies made for an amazing astral display, and we marvelled at them from below, feeling very small.

Anneke used a star gazing app to identify the biggest star as the planet Venus, and a few other constellations in various directions, including the Southern Cross and Orion’s Belt.

It soon got a bit cold, even under Sarah’s blankets, and we decided to take shelter under the tent and call it a night.

Looking forward to what our road trip brings tomorrow…!