January 3rd, 2020
Another spot that my Kiwi friend Braden had bookmarked on my
phone was Tauranga. I wasn’t sure what the
attraction was but thought I should at least check it out. It’s the fifth most populous city in New Zealand,
and it was right on the coast so it could be nice. Well, after traveling through the country
side since Braden’s hometown of Wellington, it was a rude awakening to
traffic. On the highway into town there
was construction which added about 25 minutes to the drive in but that just the
start of it.
The main downtown area is on a tiny peninsula with a cool hilly
island at the end of it, the area being called Mount Maunganui. However, that means choke points for
traffic. It was super slow getting into
town, there was no chance of finding parking so I saw the happening main street
with its busy restaurants and chic
stores, got a glimpse of the hill and then circled around and bucked the same
traffic to get out of the city. The
whole affair was close to an hour and a half of sitting in barely moving congestion. I have to admit that the downtown area was cool
looking with amazing condos and restaurants, but there were just too many vehicles
(yup, I know, I was also part of the problem).
Once I got out of town, I was on State Highway 2 and it had
its problems too. We finally gained
momentum leaving Tauranga but then about 20 kilometers later it was a turtle’s
pace for over half an hour. At times it
was hard to understand why as we’d speed up and then slow down again but
primarily the hold up was getting through a town called Katikati. It just had a few traffic circles and one or
two traffic lights, but that was enough to cause the congestion. I think there was a fair amount of holiday
traffic of Aucklanders trying to “beat the rush” by going home a few days early
as it was a Friday and I assume many people were starting back to work on
Monday after a few weeks off for Christmas and New Years. Oh well, what to do.
I eventually got onto the foot of the Coromandel Peninsula,
which was recommended by everyone I spoke to.
With lovely beaches, rolling hills and its proximity to Auckland, it’s a
popular place. The first freedom camping
spot I pulled into was full but the next one was only 15 minutes away and I did
score a spot there. It was situated behind
the main beach and in a lagoon type area.
I did walk out through the evergreen forest to the main beach around 5
pm and it was stunning, although quite windy.
Watch out...or urine trouble!
Returning to Betty 2.0, the ranger came by and was a
friendly chap. In this area, most
freedom camping spots had a designated area for self-contained vehicles. Essentially there were two signs stating: “Freedom
Camping Permitted between the arrows”.
Well there were 3 vehicles with young Germans and another camper with a
French family who were not in the “zone”.
The French were stuck on the end, just outside the arrow whereas the
Germans were on the other side of the parking lot. The ranger told the Germans that they had to
move on or somehow fit in the zone. So
they asked a number of us to rearrange our vehicles to try and fit them
in. Just as we were starting to do this,
the French family returned from the beach and they hadn’t seen the ranger but
knew they had to move. I was in a bit of
a quandary. The Germans has asked me to move to make space,
but the French had arrived earlier and really deserved a spot. We
worked it out in the end and the French family got a spot, the Germans got 2
and the remaining car just parked perpendicular to everyone else but
technically between the arrows. It was a
bit of camaraderie building.
The next morning:
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