Leaving the Coromandel Peninsula

January 6^th-7^th, 2020

The next few days were essentially driving days.  I cut across the Coromandel peninsula, passing back through the town of Coromandel and then continued west.  I looked at some campgrounds along the east coast towards Auckland but settled on going back to the campground from my very first night in Betty 2.0, 68 days earlier, the rugby grounds in a small town called Onewhero (which I now know is pronounced “own-a-fair-o” versus “one-where-o”).  It was free and a sure thing and I wanted to work on my advertisement for selling the van so I needed to take various pictures and write up the ad.

Some Buddhist retreat beside the road...felt like I was back in Nepal!

The next day I travelled through Auckland and thankfully, being the Monday after the Christmas and New Year’s holidays the traffic was fine.  I visited probably 5-6 Mitre stores, a big home hardware type chain.  I was looking for some weather sealing foam or rubber for the back hatch of the van as one side has a bit bigger of a gap than it should and dust and moisture can get inside.  At the start of my trip, I MacGyvered it with some excess bits from a foam pad that I use for my bed over the cushions, plus some duct tape but I need something a bit longer term and better looking before I sell it.  Back in Dunedin on the south island in November, I found come good stuff in a Mitre store but didn’t buy it at the time and I never found it again.   Eventually I located some decent stuff here in Auckland.  I also had to stop at a Toyota parts store to pick up a tail gate latch as mine had broken.  Luckily that was an easy fix.

I continued north from Auckland to another freedom camping spot called Port Roberts.  It was a decent place.  Now it’s on to the last major section of New Zealand that I haven’t covered yet…the Northland.