Ginger Without Borders

There was a strong wind blowing into the Paihia harbor yesterday morning but we were able to sit at our usual table for a breakfast of fried eggs for Dawn and probably my last Bennie (eggs benedict). The wind was blowing so hard that the restaurant to the left was closing all of its umbrellas (and probably the restaurant for the rest of the day).

We chose to take a longer drive to Auckland’s airport in order to get a last view of the Tasman Sea. Heading south on Highway 1, we got one last view of the Pacific as we passed Bream Bay.

Soon after we left this hill, we turned off the heavy traffic of Highway 1 to take Highway 16 over to Kaipara Habor on the west side of the north island (part of what NZ calls the Twin Coast Discovery Highway). Unfortunately for us, the predicted rain began to fall as soon as we started down Highway 16. We got a few views of the islands in Kaipara Habor, one of the world’s largest harbors (covering almost 366 square miles at high tide) before the clouds closed in. With the wind, the rain blew through in gusts stronger than we had seen since the gales of Australia on the Great Ocean Road. Basically, our view was pretty much limited to the road ahead of us. There was almost no traffic and the roads were a lot of fun to drive, so we didn’t mind.

We were soon in the outskirts of Auckland and on the four lane road to the airport. Lena loves this part. For some reason, google maps stopped us about a mile short of our hotel and said we were at our destination. We were at a cemetery. We both laughed because Lena said we would kill each other if we spent more than a month traveling together. We reentered the address and as we pulled into the carpark, the rain stopped. As we began repacking all our stuff for the flight home, the clouds disappeared and it was all blue sky. As we were told early in our visit to NZ, “if you don’t like the weather, just wait a few hours.”

Dawn is now watching rugby (we mostly understand those rules) on the telly. This afternoon, we listened to two radio ads. One was offering on-line loans if you needed to replace your ute. The other was a grocer offering tinnies for the chiller. Two months ago, we would have looked at each other and said “what??” Now we know a ute is a truck, a tinnie is canned beer and your chiller is the cooler. And the grocery cart where you put your tinnies is a trundler. Don’t expect to hear an ad for “McDonalds,” it is Mackers here. But Britian is playing NZ in a big time “test match” just south of Auckland in Hamilton, and we still don’t understand cricket.

We discovered a man named Flinders when we were in Australia (he named it and was the first European to circumnavigate it). In NZ, we visited many of the places that Captain Cook named on his circumnavigation of NZ. I became Chief Ronald with the Maori of Rotorua. We are still processing the feeling of swiming in a 105 degree moutain stream and walking through ice streams to a glacier.

Dawn is going to miss the call of the Tui (our last hotel is decorated with a plastic tui on every door – Dawn wants one to take home). I am going to miss spotting the falcons soaring over the green slopes spotted with white sheep and belted galloway cows. While driving on the left takes some mindfulness, what I WILL NOT MISS is the turn signal on the right hand side of the steering wheel!

I will miss the abundance of free public restrooms that are clearly marked with signage on all the main roads. Even when passing through a small town, it was easy to find one. It was a little unnerving that the electronic ones would lock you inside and give you a verbal warning that “the door will open in ten minutes.” Most used recycled rainwater as their primary source of water.

I will also miss the electric switches in the hotel rooms. Not all the rooms had USB ports (many did), but all the power outlets had a toggle switch. You could leave the phone charger plugged in and just turn off the switch.

But what Dawn and I both will miss the most is the genuine friendliness of both the Aussies and the Kiwis (reminded of us of what we like about living in the South). Workers in grocery stores stopped what they are doing to show us where to find TimTams. Then, as if they had no work to get back to, they talked with us for ten minutes about Lena’s obsession with TimTams. If a manager came by, he or she would join in the conversation. Both countries have a pace of life that allows and respects the time to be friendly. And they really like the US (maybe not our President). Maybe more so than in the US, both countries honor the US servicemen who came through their cities during the second world war on the way to the South Pacific to fight Japanese aggression (there were memorials to US servicemen in most of the places we visited). And almost everyone wants to visit the US. We are ready to return there.

There will be no PS in this post because Lena knows we are getting on the plane home today. Reece got leave from the Coast Guard (not for us but for a chance to visit his girlfriend one more time before he has to work over the holidays). He will pick us up at the Raleigh airport. We leave Auckland at 3:30pm (Wednesday here). After crossing the International Date Line, we will land in LA at 6:30am on Wednesday (8 hours before we left Auckland). We arrive in RDU at 7:30pm Wednesday night. So our journey will only take 3 hours on Wednesday. We are ready for every minute of it.