20 Weeks RTW: Saturday, Mar. 4 (week 6 / day 41) Auckland to Queenstown, NZ

Beach Hill Climb

Before our travel day began, Paul, Sydney & Carley drove over to the popular mountain hike (Mt Maunganui) at the end of Tauranga Beach. The sunrise was beautiful over the Pacific Ocean as we climbed the path to the summit with the hundreds of others. 20 minute up, 7 minutes at the top & 15 minutes back to the car. On the way home, we missed our exit & got onto the toll road, a 10-mile stretch without exits reminiscent of the Dulles toll road near Washington D.C. Paul risked exiting via the last on-ramp, driving slowly on the shoulder, luckily there was not much traffic!

near the start of the hike

half-way up the mountain

at the summit of Mt Manganui

Pacific Ocean to the left, Tauranga Bay to the right

Auckland to Queenstown

It took almost 3 hours to drive from Tauranga to Auckland & 90 minutes to fly from Auckland to Queenstown. Jetstar is one of those budget airlines that charges for reserving seats, extra baggage & water & snacks on the flight. Cannon was quite upset when we had to say "no" to the $10 water cup & pretzels. The short flight made it bearable & we soon had our bags & were ready for the adventure to follow...

Frankton Motor Camp

So, Paul had carefully planned this adventurous scenario: get our baggage, carry & roll everything about 1 mile to the Frankton Motor Camp where he had reserved a cabin 2 months ago. We would then walk to church the next morning since it was only half a mile away & the rental car place was just a few blocks from there! It was all too convenient to come off without a glitch. Although it took a few minutes, we did find the pedestrian walkway off the airport property (not something you can do easily in large cities, say like, LA!) We made our way as depicted in the pics below with Google Maps as our guide, which informed us mid-street that we had "arrived at our destination." Paul jogged around a bit & got a pointer from a local. We have to admit we know we looked funny, a little parade pulling our roller bags down the sidewalk. The supposed 17 minute walk took us about 45. That luggage and those backpacks get heavier by the minute. We finally made it to the Camp, but... as we gave them our name in the front office, they didn't have us booked & were completely full!

The girl Paul had reserved with failed to simply write our name on the schedule! She has since been fired. Lee was the young girl at the desk & Graham is the owner who was apologetic & tried to find room elsewhere. After 30 minutes or so, Graham finally scrambled to accommodate us with his own personal space. He offered us a spare room in his house just behind the office & a pop-up trailer that his workers sometimes use. We debated for a short while & decided we could make it work with an extra mattress in the spare room. Carley got the skinny bed in the trailer & Sydney & Cannon shared the single. Paul, Stacia, Avery & Kyra would take the spare room but after dinner at the tavern, Lee told us we could move to a new unit they were still constructing with a king bed. It had no electricity and plywood floors but anything was better then being near the party. She helped us move 2 mattresses for the floor & we made the switch. This was a life saver, as Graham had people over in his courtyard, just outside the spare room until 1:30am; loud, vulgar, drunk people, singing to loud music. The move made the night bearable as the new unit was just out of earshot from the noise. We slept pretty well & woke to a brighter day.

When we were working through the problem Graham asked where we were from. We told him Idaho and he said, "oh yea, if you were from California or New York you would have been yelling at me by now." It was funny.

Dinner at the tavern was a much-needed splurge of yummy (not so healthy) tavern fare of huge burgers, fish & chips (Sydney's new favorite find) corn fritters plated beautifully & sandwiches (toasties). Also, the best ice cream sundaes around. Cannon actually picked an ice cream sundae for his dinner, which seems about as healthy as fries which were his second choice, and it was so good we had to get two more for the rest of us to share for dessert. Not sure exactly what made it so good but the ice cream was exceptionally creamy. We asked the waitress what kind it was but she didn't know. The atmosphere was a great taste of local New Zealanders with the crowds cheering at the Rugby match playing on the screens. After dinner, the 5 kids hung out together in the pop-up trailer while we took brisk stroll along the lake front with a gorgeous sunset over the mountains. Another mini-date to visit & enjoy a bit of solace.