Monday 26/10/15
Touring North Island.
The next adventure started today! We woke after a really good sleep, packed our bags and arranged a transfer to Maui motor home rental near the airport. Our 'Platinum Beach' camper was waiting for us, and after a guided tour, some signatures and some 'dos and donts' we were ready to go.
Bill spent a while working out how and what did what, and then we were off! We carefully turned left out of the car park, and pulled away. Bill was aware that there was a lot of play in the brake pedal, so we proceeded with caution. We could hear the tinkling sound of the empty coat hangers rattling in the wardrobe behind us. At the first roundabout we turned left and suddenly there was a loud crash from behind us! Hardly daring to look round we heard further tinkling sounds as we drove on.
Further investigation revealed that the drawer containing the glasses and crockery (of course it had to be that one, and not the one containing the saucepans...!) had opened and come off its runners and was upside down in the kitchen footwell, where it was now surrounded by broken fragments of mugs and glass.
Humph. We cleared up the mess and set off back up the office, where the mechanic replaced the faulty lock on the drawer, and replaced the broken mugs and glasses. He also checked the brakes - fine.
Next departure was more successful and we headed off to the supermarket stock up on provisions for the next few days.
Now we were really ready to start out on our adventure, and headed north on the freeway. First stop, Devonport. The southern most town on the small peninsula across the water from Auckland. It had quite a colonial style of building and the sea front has a lovely row of ancient trees.
From Devonport, we drove up the eastern coast, passing through a number of pretty dull suburbs until we reached Warkworth and suddenly the land became greener, undulating and beautiful with mountains and cliffs visible in the distance. Mangawhai Heads was the first lovely beach we saw, followed by Lang's beach and Waipu.
We selected a DOC (Department of Conservation) campsite at Uretiti. It had very few facilities but was set in a nature reserve in the sand dunes just behind a perfect beach. We walked down to the beach for a moonlit walk on the sand. The full moon was gleaming on the water. Beautiful. Then it was back to our camper van to unpack and eat supper.