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