THEY CALL ME THE SEEKER

The next day as I was typing another e-mail desperately seeking Simon and Frankie I received a phone call from him, he was five minutes down the road and waiting to pick up the car. Three hours later after buck-passing and misinformation from train ticket clerks we had the car and set off on our road trip. The ride from the airport to central Auckland was as nondescript as any ride into any city as was the first portion of the freeway. Turning off on to the Pacific Coast Highway was when the thing I was worried about happened.

Thomas Hardy’s Dorset hills gave way to Scottish Highland lakes and forests of fir.
To my right Swiss, Alpine grassland while to my left Australian beaches.
Wooden, red, Icelandic farm buildings scatter the greenery and azure rivers defy logic for they are surely meant to be diluted; mud acting as diluvian gravy browning . When we stopped in the summer sun you could hear the unmistakeable sound of the wind ruffling Douglas Spruces.

Several of my friends who visited this country never came home and I was worried that I too may fall in love with this country.

And I did…

It is so God damned beautiful yet at the same time a total enigma.

How can these contradictions sit next to each other on opposite sides of one road?
The Pacific Highway provided some of the most breathtaking panoramas I’ve seen. Driving along you see perfect horse-riding countryside next to bay after bay scattered with islands sitting in the crystal blue ocean, all the while autumn year couples sail their four wheeled Winnebago ships passed you.

The first night we stayed in a backpacker’s hostel with about three rooms in Thames, a tiny town with the cheapest supermarket in NZ: Pak n Save. Much cheaper than Australia. We rented a dorm for four paying eight pounds each hoping that no-one else would take the fourth bed. They didn’t. Frankie had the bottom bunk to herself and drew the curtain, transforming it into a Princesses bed. Drinking beers and wine we stayed up in to the small hours chatting rubbish and listening to music.

The next morning we drove to up the Coromandel peninsular into the tiny quaint town of Coromandel which feels like a town in a sunnier Lake District, not much to report save for Simon getting pooed on by an albatross. And so to HaHei we stayed at a converted dairy farm hostel and I cooked Thai Green Curry with no coriander, lemongrass nor lime leaves. I’ve eaten like a king with Si and Frankie, they have taught me loads about life on the road - both organising, saving, planning, picnicking and having a cardboard box as a portable larder.