November 18 - New Zealand: Auckland to Hamilton (North Island)
Jon woke up early and went for a run, and woke me up when he came back to shower. We packed up our stuff and checked out of the Ponsonby Backpackers Hostel, giving our email one last check before we left.
Ponsonby Backpackers Hostel
Jon finally logs his runs in NZ! (written on 4 Dec.) - Run #18
OK, we've been in NZ for two and a half weeks and I haven't logged a single one of my runs. Either that means that I haven't been doing any running since the awful run in Singapore, or I've simply been lazy. Those people that know me know that the lazy option is quite likely. Anyway, today I decided to see whether I was terribly out of shape or whether the bad running experience in Singapore might have really been attributable to the hot, muggy weather.
I woke up at 6:30 so I could get an early start on the day and the weather was quite cool. As I headed down the hill from our hostel I remember thinking to myself that the weather is quite similar to Fall Marathon weather. With a Fall marathon, at least in NY or DC, you start training before summer even starts so that you are in better shape when it gets really hot in the summertime. By summer you are getting up as early as 5am on a Sunday so you can run 20 miles before the temperature hits 80 or 85. Anyway, I'm thinking that Singapore was my summer run and New Zealand should be my Fall runs. Can you tell that I'm a bit sad I didn't run this year's marathon? My goal is to be running 10 miles as an easy long run by February or March and then start working on some speed...either way, I'm already in for the 2002 NY marathon so I'm doing it come what may!
Oh yeah, today's run! It was nice, I ran around a park and then through town. Sort of a meandering run with no real sense of urgency. I was happy to be running in a city where the weather was agreeable and had a fair amount of hills, kind of like San Francisco. I loved it. The success of the run told me that the bad run in Singapore was 100% because of the conditions. Whew!
Breakfast at Lulu's
When we walked around town last night looking for a place to have dinner, we passed an adorable cafe called Lulu's. After looking at their menu, we passed them up for dinner but decided to return this morning for a breakfast splurge: Bagels with cream cheese and smoked salmon. My mouth salivates just thinking about it.
The place was great. Old songs were playing on the stereo, muffins were resting happily on their silver trays, and coffee was smelling up the entire place. The bagels made our New York hearts proud, and the salmon was delicious. So yummy to splurge and get this!!
Drive into Auckland
After breakfast, we stopped by the hotel one last time and drove to downtown where we'd located some outdoor shops.
One of Auckland's Downtown Buildings
Because I'm driving on the wrong side of the car and the wrong side of the road, I've given Jon carte blanche to be a back-seat driver whenever he feels like it. I need the constant reminder: "Drive on the left.... drive on the left.... drive on the left....". It's actually not so bad. My only gripe is that the windshield wiper control is on the left side of the steering wheel, and the turn indicator is on the right. So - out of habit - whenever we go to turn I accidentally turn on the windshield wipers! It makes Jon laugh.
Outdoor Store - Quest for a Tent
We are determined to find a tent and to spend the rest of the trip camping. We stopped by a place called "Kathmandu", but they only had four models of tents. Not much of a selection for a country that's supposed to be all about the outdoors. So we drove further into town to Victoria Road. On this road, we knew we'd find at least 4 different stores.
We struck it rich in the first one. They had a booklet full of tents, some of which were in stock and some of which weren't. We balked at the prices in the first few pages, but quickly realized that the deals were at the end of the booklet. The tent selection was amazing! There were tents for 8-persons, tents with 2-3 rooms, tents with optional expanding rooms, and even a tent with an indoor pool. (Just kidding about the indoor pool).
Jon and I settled on a 3 person tent at the lower end of the scale, and were delighted to find that they had it in stock. The guy who helped us said, "It's a Sunday, so it's a play day. Do you want help setting it up, or do you want to play and figure it out for yourself?". We decided to play and he shoved another tent display out of the way so we'd have room. A half hour later, our OZ 3-V Dome tent was in action. It's not as large as our tents in Africa were, but we were quite happy with it for the price. We figure it will pay itself off after 7 campings.
We were sold. We were even MORE sold when we found out that all tents were 20% off. Yipee!!
We also bought a little guide book about camping in New Zealand. So we were quite happy and left the store practically skipping.
We looked around at a few other stores for Tevas for Jon (his are falling apart), but couldn't find any. So we went to a store called "The Warehouse" which is essentially a Wal-Mart/K-Mart. There, we bought a drop cloth to protect the tent from mildew.
Lunch and Grocery Store
We stopped for lunch at a Turkish Kebab place, and then we were ready to leave. But first we had to stop at the grocery store. Jon had found one on his run today, so we went back to it and parked in the parking garage. This place was HUGE!!! And it had everything. We got fruit, sandwich makings, snacks and drinks. Unfortunately, we couldn't find any disposable coolers to keep the drinks and cheese cold. Jon, however, received inspiration as he walked by the doors to the back of the grocery store. There, he saw a woman unpacking vegetables from styrofoam coolers. He walked through the doors and asked if he could have two. So smart!!
So we checked out with our groceries, loaded them into the coolers and the car, and we were ready to take off for our New Zealand extravaganza!
Drive South on Highway 1
Today was only a 2-hour drive, but it was a lovely drive. The highways are very nice and the scenery is beautiful. We were in no rush so we stayed in the slow lanes and just enjoyed the sights. Jon looked through our various guide books for campgrounds in Hamilton, and I looked for places that sold ice. We finally found the latter at a service station 1/2 hour down the road.
This is when we realized that our nifty new coolers had holes in them.
Bummer.
Since we'd already poured ice into one of them and it had already begun to leak, we decided to put it in various plastic bags and to hope for the best. We'd search for another cooler down the road.
Little did we know, New Zealand doesn't have disposable coolers. This, apparently, is an American thing. It took us 3-4 cooler stops to figure this out. We confirmed it when we got to our campsite in Hamilton.
Hamilton
Hamilton is a cute town with a University and a precious main-street area. The Holiday Campground is run by a lovely couple, and the woman sat and talked our ear off for a while when we checked in. But we were grateful because she offered us some NZ camping tips which we definitely needed. Most campgrounds will have kitchens, but no dishes or utensils. So she gave us directions to the K-Mart in town so we could buy a cooler and anything else we may need.
Jon and I hemmed and hawed about the expense of a real cooler, but decided that it would be worthwhile if we could bring it to Australia with us in a few weeks. We set up our tent in pretty good time, and got back into the car to go to K-Mart.
The Proud Owner of a New Tent
We parked in the K-Mart parking lot and walked in, only to find it had closed 30 minutes earlier. On our way out of the building, Jon spotted a cinema around the corner and wanted to see what was playing. So we left the car and walked over. Lucky for us, directly across the street from the cinema was "The Warehouse" and it was open! In there, we found our cooler, utensils, pot, pan, plates, and a spatula. We were very pleased with ourselves.
We lugged the cooler-full of merchandise to the movie theater to see what was playing and decided to catch the 6:20 showing of "The Score". The time was 5:50. So we hightailed it back to the car to put the cooler away and to bring the car closer to the theater.
This is when we and about 5 other cars realized a small trauma: K-Mart gates its parking lot after it closes. So a bunch of us were stuck inside the parking lot with no way to get out. We drove around for a while looking for a loophole, but in the end we all ended up idling by one of the chains stretched across the lane. Two enterprising young teenagers figured out that - if they stretch the chain up high enough - the smaller cars could just squeeze underneath the chain. And all of the cars stuck in the lot were small enough. So we escaped without a scratch and just made it to the movie theater in time.
The Score
I love Robert DeNiro and I also love Edward Norton. But the movie was slightly disappointing. Actually, just the ending was disappointing - the majority of the movie was good. That said, it was nice to see a good movie on a quality big-screen again.
Planet Burger
Sunday nights in Hamilton are dead. There was NO ONE around, and many places were closed except for Planet Burger. This place is very similar to the place we ate at last night, but with different toppings. Regardless, it was quick and we were starving. So we sat and read the Australian Cosmopolitan while we waited for our food to arrive.
Finally, it was back to the campground for the first night in our new home!