January 14th-16th, 2020
The next couple of days weren’t too eventful. I started to switch into “clean the van and
sell it” mode. My next campsite was near
the small city of Whangarei, population close to 60,000. In this region it seemed like most of the
freedom camping spots only had space for 2-3 vehicles, however there were quite
a few of them. As I passed through Whangarei,
I found a car wash and gave Betty 2.0 a good going over. She’d gotten quite dusty over the last few
weeks.
I checked out 4-5 freedom campsites dotted along the
Whangarei harbour and eventually settled back on one of the first ones I
saw. It was an alright spot although the
2 designated sites for self contained vehicles were pretty close to the toilets
which provided the odd malodorous waft of air and also a bright light shining
all night.
The coolest caution sign I've seen in the country...
The following night I worked my way further south towards
Auckland but I still had a day or two to kill as it was only Tuesday and the
car fairs (where I hoped to sell the campervan) weren’t until the weekend. I decided to return to Port Albert where I
camped a couple of times before and continued on the cleaning and detailing of
Betty 2.0.
Some interesting art structures on some farmland...
I scheduled an oil change and 21 point inspection for the
van on Thursday so I had one more night before I would have to hang fairly
close to Auckland until I had sold the van.
Looking at the map on CamperMate, I opted to go to Whatipu Beach which was
on a remote coast west of the big city.
It was a fairly windy road to get there with the last 10 km or so being a
dusty gravel road.
But the drive there was worth it. What a nice spot! There were a couple of large grassy fields
surrounded on three sides by lush, tree covered hills. The ocean was a five minute walk away and
just out of site, unless you climbed up the small side of a hill behind the
campsite which had a wonderful view. The
fields were large enough that all campervans and motorhomes were quite spread
out and there was the odd pukeko (colourful bird) walking around. I did a bit of blogging and then pulled out
my guitar to practice a bit. A young man
returned to his van about 100 meters away and after hearing me strumming away,
he pulled out a guitar and motioned to me whether it was okay for him to join
me…sure why not. Sasha was from Germany
and was planning to be in the country for about a year. We had a good time jamming together and he
taught me a few songs like the Cranberries’ Zombie.
The view from partway up the hill:
The next morning, I went for a walk on the black sandy beach before getting on the road and heading into Auckland to have Betty’s tune-up. Whatipu is a lovely site for sure.
The walk to the beach:
A pukeko:
On the drive to Auckland:
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