Today we left New Plymouth after having breakfast with Bruce Petty who moved to New Zealand over 12 years ago. He used to be a nuclear medicine technician at Kaiser Hospital in Vallejo but he developed a wanderlust and retired to New Zealand to write about the history of World War II and to give enrichment lectures on the Princess Cruise lines. He is married to a Pediatrician and they are raising three children with a better quality of life in New Zealand. Health Insurance for a family of 5 costs him about $2500 NZD per year.
New Plymouth is a great town with everything you could desire in terms of services, culture, schools and climate. The only negative is that it is near a dormant volcano that could erupt at any time. :(
After we left New Plymouth, Earline and I said we still needed to see an original growth Kauri tree to complete our bucket list. Thus we decided to drive north to the Waipoa Forest to see the largest and oldest Kauri tree in all of New Zealand, probably the oldest in the world.
This represented a long drive of 6 1/2 hours today but we still have a day and a half to be in New Zealand and we wanted to see what the more distant North Island was like. Once we got through the horrible traffic of Auckland, we drove north on Route 1 to Silverdale where we stopped at a service center to refuel and to learn how to pay for a toll road that goes through a tunnel. They don't have toll booths but instead you go to the counter and provide your car license number to the desk clerk who enters it into the computer. You pay about $5.60 NZD for a return trip on the toll road and you get a receipt. As you drive the road, cameras take a picture of your license plate and I guess it compares your plate to the computer entry. Hopefully, I will not get a fine. I better keep the receipt.
There is a lot of empty land in the North Island as well and the industry seems to be mostly of dairy farming.
Traveling north you will find Route 12 that crosses the land from east to west and that leads you to Dargaville, the Kumara Capital of the World, that is near the Waipoa Forest that has the old growth Kauri trees that we hope to see tomorrow.
Kumar (Click the link)
We found a nice motel called "Hobson's Choice" for $130 NZD. The internet was speedy and the room was quite nice. We went into town to find a place to eat dinner and lucked into an establishment called "The Northern Wairoa Hotel and Restaurant." The place had atmosphere and excellent food and we learned what Kumara is. It is a root vegetable similar to a large sweet potato but with a slightly different taste.
Tonight was Halloween and I saw kids running around doing much like what our kids do in the USA. Tomorrow morning at 5:00 am will be the World Championship Rugby match between New Zealand and Australia. The entire country is anticipating this game and praying that the All Blacks, the New Zealand team, wins. If they do, it will be their third world championship win. It is fun to be here in New Zealand at this particular time and to watch the country get behind "their" team. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment