turn on the sat nav first

Week One

Saturday 19th January was a relatively early start.  We had booked our motorhome directly with Kea Motorhomes finally choosing the 3 berth original deluxe van, new for 2013.  We had had a good poke around the kea motorhome on the Caravan & Camping Club stand at the Motorhome Show at the NEC the previous autumn & had a good chat with a C & CC tour leader who had been most disappointed when we informed him we were 'going it alone'.  Anyway, Kea collect you from your overnight accommodation, so after another gut stuffing Kiwi breakfast we were duly collected at 9am by an ex-pat originally from Manchester.

The drive to the main depot which was in close proximity to the airport, took about 30 minutes more or less, ample time for our driver, who had been a guided tour driver, to to fill us in on driving in New Zealand, campsites, wild camping, shopping & recommending routes & itineraries.   He was amazed that we had no set route as such just a list of friends to call in and visit, but, he conceded that if he was touring he would do similar as it gave full flexibility.  I have to say, this was a good customer service point  for Kea as it gave us some invaluable pre-tour knowledge & information.
                                                    

The drive to the depot was pretty uneventful, the depot though was vast.  All the major motorhome rental companies shared the facilities, Kia, Maui & Apollo, with what seemed to be a global customer base both arriving & departing with a selection of self-check-ins & human staff.  We went for the human element, the chap was very helpful, very attentive then very desperate.  Check in & departure is normally pretty organised.  Two & half hours later he just about still had hair.  We had been given a rather natty Kia shopping bag filled with things like, tourist maps, camping site directories & tourist radio plug-in to which we added several bottles of complimentary NZ pinot noir & cabernet sauvignon.   The van, which had only 2k miles on the clock was not ready.  In the end our man went off & cleaned the motorhome himself.  Eventually, by one o'clock, he led us across the car park to our home for the coming 3 weeks only to discover that .... the table was the wrong one & a few other bits that need adding to the van's  complement of essentials.   Although we waited & waited, the Kia rep was very good, bless him, he really earned his money that day!

At last, we were ready to go, 'yes, the sat-nav is in the rear view mirror' I said confidently.  I mean how difficult is it to set a sat nav?  First port of call for us was the large Countdown supermarket only about 1/2 mile away from the pick-up point - food.  The first bit of luck was in the form a German couple who came over to us in the car park bring a tray of goodies, bits & pieces that they still had as they emptied their van before flying home.  Thank you!  Now, NZ supermarkets are a bit more user friendly than their British counterparts, firstly at the check out, the staff pack your bags for you, loved this, as to the food on offer, pretty similar format to here, more wine though, a lot of Asian & tanks of shellfish. Yum.

Stocked up, time now to head out northwards.  Now l can pretty much navigate anywhere, it takes a lot to get me lost.  We took the wrong turn off the motorway, the motorway sort of stopped & it was a case of street navigating to find & cross the Auckland Harbour Bridge, or as the Rough Guide calls it, the Nippon Clip-on.  We were heading more or less in the right direction, but after a rise in temperature stopped so that l could set the sat-nav with the co-ordinates for Orewa.  Ten minutes later we were crossing the bridge.  

Driving was easy, road conditions & signposts all rather good really, the dual carriageway sped through the suburbs of Auckland, out into the countryside.  The route took us through a toll section which rather, than you putting your card in a booth, they took a photo of the number plate, looking on the map you can avoid this stretch.

Late afternoon we left Route 1, turning off for Orewa & the coast.  The tourist road map now came into its own, every campsite, national park campsite etc are marked on the map, whilst in the indexes are the address, contact number & GPS settings, so we turned left at the coast arriving at the Orewa Top 10 Holiday Park, 

We had not pre-booked our stop-over & were checked in by the receptionist who just so happened to come from Filey, yes l know small world.  The site, was right on the beach & by UK standards was a little tired [it was the end of the summer season], but it was clean, almost full with holidaymakers in an assortment of DIY tents & motorhomes.  We parked under tall pine trees and were soon being invited in by neighbours for a glass or two whilst we discussed motorhoming in UK, Europe & New Zealand.  I think that with us having a motorhome back home really broke the ice, we were all on the same wavelength, so to speak.