Cottage Life

We stayed at the cottage on Orewa Beach for 6 nights but in all honesty we didn't do a whole hell of a lot that was particularly interesting so I'm going to do a photo-intensive double post covering that whole period.

The Cottage:

In 2006 we rented a cottage on the ocean in Pukehina Beach which is an isolated "community" of literally a few homes interspersed amongst a hundred or so beachfront buildings, most of which are cottages or rental properties. The local businesses consist of a general store and a single restaurant/bar. The nearest town is Te Puke which is a 20 minute drive from the (really lovely) rental cottage.


We found this arrangement a little too isolated for our liking so when planning the 2008 adventure we sought out a cottage rental that was a little closer to town. We couldn't have been more successful with the cottage (the NZ term for a cottage is a "Bach") we found in Orewa Beach.


On the one side we had the beach front and on the other side of the building we had the "downtown" area of the town.


In case anyone is interested in renting cottage property in NZ, the term "Absolute Beach Front" is what is required in order to guarantee that the property is actually situated on the beach. Remember ... Absolute.


Our little bit of paradise is clearly one of the original "cottage" buildings on the strand. The neighbouring buildings are quite clearly an order of magnitude more exclusive and expensive than the one we rented. There are many explanations for why the owners of our rental cottage are still offering it to folks like us instead of developing the property but I don't much care why. I'm just glad they do.


The building offers three bedrooms, two with queen beds and one with a double/single bunk. For some reason we chose this one ...


... although in hindsight the other one with a queen bed had better curtains and would have been quieter. The bathroom functions were divided into two rooms, one which offered a sink and shower and tub, and one which offered a toilet.


Here's a New Zealand fact. While we in North America offer up unending euphamisms for the room in which we dispose of our waste, the New Zealanders invariably call it "The Toilet". You can not guarantee correct directions if you ask for help finding "The Washroom", "The Bathroom" or "The Head". Just ask for the toilet.

The toilet room also is adjacent to the laundry which we tried. Suffice to say that hand washing would have been easier and faster.

The kitchen is very nice.


The living room is rightly the centre piece of the building offering excellent views of the ocean. There is also a TV and Stereo and some semi-comfortable furniture.


This was the first opportunity for us to really sleep in and we did! Yes, folks, most days we were still in bed after 9:00 am. What luxury!

We decided that we would try to keep the restaurant meals to a minimum while at the cottage so we set up a schedule whereby we would do a few little things in the morning ...


... have some lunch, and then get going with the afternoon activities.


For the shutterbugs in the crowd, the picture two up is what is called a High Dynamic Range (HDR)image. I took three images of the exact same scene but with different exposures; dark so the ocean scene through the window would show up, medium, and then bright so the inside scene with Debbie in the foreground would be well exposed. A program I bought called Photomatix combines the images into one picture that shows the best content of the three original images.

Every day we had the same visitors. The beach was of course busy with seagulls and there were endless turf wars ongoing but these two seem to have settled themselves in quite nicely. They really did stand (on one leg)/sit there exactly like that for hours on end.


Orewa Beach:

The beach and town are popular attractions for tourists and locals alike. Orewa Beach is only an hour or so away from the country's largest city so it is not surprising that there is a thriving Kiwi tourist trade in town.



Next: A walk around town and the beach when the weather turns the ocean from flat to fun.

Until then ...


Don

FYI

Because of the busy time we had early on in the trip and the relative shortage of internet later on, I'm running quite behind on postings. I will be catching up with posting this week coming so don't lose hope just yet.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Don

Cottage Bound

Our flight from Nelson to Auckland was booked for 10:20am and given the crazy checkin and security issues flying seems to have these days we left plenty of time to get to the airport, drop off the rental car, check in, and wait. Everything went smoothly and we mostly waited. The security checkpoint at the Nelson airport seems to consist entirely of a sign saying "Security".



Other than that, nada. Just check your bags and (after waiting, of course) walk out onto the tarmac when instructed and hop aboard your flight. Does anyone else remember when all flying used to be this customer friendly?

On the flight I took the opportunity to shoot some more of the NZ scenery from the air. This bay adjacent to Nelson turns into a giant mud flats twice a day when the tide goes out.


Notice I had the shutter speed high enough to freeze the propeller on our turboprop airplane.


I think I'll leave the rest of the shots comment free. Enjoy!







Our luggage was late coming off the airplane and we had a few moments of Arrgh! before they made an announcement that there would be more luggage coming in a little while. It eventually showed up on the luggage belt and so we loaded up a luggage trolly (they are free in Auckland airport thus far) and headed out to wait for our rental car people to come and collect us. It took a while but we finally were packed into a Nissan Bluebird (think Maxima - quite a bit of a comedown from the sporty Holden Commodore we had on the South Island) and sent on our way.



There is one major highway that winds up from Wellington in the south all the way up to Cape Reinga, the northernmost point of the North Island. This highway is a multilane limited access freeway as it passes through Auckland and it is the road we needed to take to get to our rental cottage. I will now offer an example of how completely mental the Auckland road system is.
You would think that quite a few people would need to get from the busiest airport in the country onto that one major freeway. In Toronto, for example, in order to get from Pearson to the 401 you take either the 427 or the 409, depending which way on the 401 you want to go. Here, on the other hand, is the list of instructions required to get from Auckland International over to SH1, the main highway (instructions courtesy of the owners of our cottage rental).

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Leave the international airport following the only way out road

Come to a set of lights and turn left into George Bolt Memorial Drive (State Highway 20A)

You will come to a major intersection controlled by traffic lights (intersecting road is Kirkbride Road) – continue straight through. This is the start of the motorway (SH 20A)

Stay on the motorway until you see the Queenstown Road turn off – you need to turn off at this point.

Drive up the turnoff and at the top you will have to turn right going down Queenstown Road.

After a couple of hundred metres down Queenstown Road you will reach a roundabout. Go straight through and up the other side – this is the start of Pah Road.

Pah Road is a long road. It eventually joins into Manukau Road. Just stay on this road.

You will pass Alexander Park trotting course on your right hand side. This would be the start of Manukau Road – continue driving on this road.

When you have passed the trotting club you will be driving for maybe another 3-5 minutes on this road – the next major intersection is where you will want to turn left into Alpers Ave. If you miss this turn off and continue straight through you will soon see the Newmarket shops – you will then know you have gone too far and will need to turn back.

Turning left into Alpers Ave (a one way road) you will want to be in the middle of the road. At the end of Alpers Ave ( relatively short road) you will want to turn right at the lights into Gillies Avenue.

You want to be on the left hand side of the Gillies Avenue road.

About 200 metres driving up Gillies Avenue is the entry onto the motorway northwards (State Highway 1) – get onto this motorway.
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We did actually make all the necessary turns and whatnot and found ourselves zooming along on the 6 lane freeway north out of Auckland. Or we would have been zooming if there hadn't been a number of traffic jams along the way (on Saturday - I would hate to see weekday rush hour). The traffic eventually cleared and for the last 50 km or so we made good time.

The road to the cottage starts where the by-then 4 lane freeway turns into a 2 lane highway. A short drive down the Hibiscus Coast Highway took us into the little holiday town of Orewa where we happily found our cottage. I'll have more on the cottage later but suffice to say it is situated right in town with the street side facing shops and restaurants and the other side backing directly onto the wide sand beach and the ocean.

We unpacked our stuff and then went off for a walk around town to source out some groceries and other supplies. Along the way we stopped for some early dinner just in time to avoid a great downpour followed by a bright rainbow.


I'll elaborate on Orewa and our stay there in the next post.

Until then ...

Don

A Day in Nelson

Given our difficulty finding a room when arriving in Nelson, and that the hotel we did eventually find was booked for the following night, we immediately did some phoning around town to find a room for the next night. After much hunting we did find a motel near the downtown area with a not-too-extortionate rate.

The downside of all that is that we were forced to pack up our crap once again in the morning and be out by 10:00am. We did all that and drove to the main business district where we parked and fed the meter. We found an outdoor cafe and had a bite to eat before heading off on a walking tour of town.

We visited Nelson on our last trip but sadly we spent a Sunday there and everything in town locks up the doors at 3:00. This time we were there on a Friday so we had a full day to browse the shops and sample the streetside pubs.

NERD ALERT! Lord of the Rings trivia ahead!

On a side street in Nelson is the Jens Hansen jewelery shop. These are the jewellers that were selected after a competition to provide the titular rings for the movies. There were several rings produced of various sizes for different purposes. In all cases the writing was added to the ring inside surface as a CGI effect in post processing. This greatly oversized ring ...


... was made from Stainless Steel with Gold flashing. It was used for the special effects shots (such as the tumbling ring shots in the opening). This somewhat oversized ring was made for the Sauron character, large enough to fit over the large gloves (in the scene where the ring is cut from Sauron's hand).


In this shot is a human-sized ring in the same style which they produce as requested. The price list is visible in the shot above (note a NZ dollar can be purchased for around .80 Canadian).


We did not, for the record, purchase any rings. Finally, they had this slightly oversized ring made that was the one worn on a chain around Frodo's neck for most of the film.


We have seen a few of this breed of dog in our travels in NZ. It seems to be popular, but they all seem to have the look of being afraid and beaten down (I realize it's the look, and that they are not really beaten).


We re-fed the parking meter and wandered around more of the tourist shopping areas without seeing much to tempt the coin from our pockets. After much walking, we needed to replenish fluids and so we chose a "Garden Patio" which was pretty warm and sunny and not very garden-y.


The motel became ready so we drove over, settled in, and then walked back up to the main restaurant row for an early dinner. Every Friday night in the summer they set up an artist's market in the street ...


and so traffic was blocked off and tents erected in the newly created pedestrian mall. We decided to hang around until everything was set up ...



... and while waiting we found the New Zealand John Harron. A bit of explanation: Our friend had a milestone birthday a little while ago and as a joke some friends made up a series of cards showing how frequently John Harron lookalikes seem to show up in various locations and in film. This is just our contribution to the ouvre.


In this case, NZ John Harron is the drummer in the band hired to entertain everyone at the street market.


A shot of a couple of fans


And finally here is a bust and sign dedicated to a local coffee shop owner who welcomed the local arts crowd for many years.


We found Nelson to be an interesting town but we both agree that we pretty much saw everything we needed to see the last time we were here and probably didn't need a return visit. C'est la vie.


Until next time...

Don

Off to Nelson Once Again

This was another major driving day. We hit the road at 10:00 after a quick breakfast and headed north out of Franz Joseph. The rain that had started in the afternoon on the previous day continued through the night and was still going strong as we worked our way along the west coast of the south island.

The steady rain added a previously unknown dimension to the adventure that is the New Zealand winding mountain road. Fortunately there was light traffic heading south and especially little truck and bus traffic.

The highway parallels the coast several kilometers inland as it makes its way through the coastal mountains. The tires on our rental car were more than up to the task of the sharp turns, sudden braking, and uphill acellerations the road offered and I had a pretty good time for most of the trip. Debbie, on the other hand, watched the approaching hairpin turns and oncoming traffic with less confidence.

We stopped for lunch in Greymouth (the town where two years ago we caught the train for the trip over the mountains to Christchurch). One funny incident happened while we were walking down the street looking for a suitable lunch spot. After scoping out one cafe Debbie remarked that it was very similar to the one we had had lunch at while waiting for the train. After we walked out, I noticed a wall painting across the street that looked familiar and suddenly realized it was the exact same cafe.

Once at the coast we chose a slightly longer route so as to pass by the Pancake Rocks area which is a recommended site to see. We probably would have skipped it this trip, but it seems likely we won't visit the west coast of the south island again even if we revisit New Zealand in the future, so it was a now-or-never choice and we chose now.

As we approached the park that comprises the Pancake Rocks site we found ourselves in a narrow tourist-y area without any indication we weren't on a major highway, even though we were. It just suddenly appeared and there were many tourists walking across the highway and tour buses parked beside the highway. They could really use some extra signage there, with perhaps a crosswalk or two.

The two attractions in the area are the pancake rocks and some blowholes resulting from waves pushing air through underground channels. We never saw the blowholes. I can't say why since I was kind of looking forward to seeing them and it was mighty wavey that day.

The "Pancake" nature of the rocks in the area is currently unexplained according to the signboards along the scenic walkway.


The walkway is paved and a fairly easy stroll for all ages (including a pair of pushy older ladies who kept jumping in front of me when I tried to take a pic)


The water has undercut the rock in places creating deep channels, sometimes with sea level holes for the waves to crash through.




Other than the unusual rocks ...


... the rainy weather ...


... and the stunning scenery ...



... there wasn't a whole lot else to see, so we finished the structured walk and continued on our way.

Debbie tried once again to capture the driving fun.





As we got near Nelson the mountains became a little less rocky and a bit more stoney. I thought it was amazing that these highway cuts through essentially dirt and gravel didn't have a bit more in the way of reinforcing wall to keep the walls from crumbling onto the road. This one had a fence, at least.


After a grueling drive, we finally made it to Nelson only to discover that it was the busiest weekend of the year. After driving around the city for a while we ended up finding the second last room in the city, which was a very nice, if very expensive room.

We settled in and then wandered to the downtown for some last minute (for Nelson - 9:00 pm!) dinner, had a pint and found ourselves in bed asleep by 10:30.

Until next time,

Don