Jeannie often describes our biking style as “slow and low”. That is pretty much how we spent Monday after a pretty long sleep after our marathon flights from LA to Sydney to Auckland. I greeted the maid at about 10 AM and indicated that no services would be needed since we were still not dressed and the contents of our bags were covering most of the floor in the room. JV: I have to put a plug in here for BKs Best Western Pioneer Motor Lodge at the Auckland Airport. Budget no frills option that has delighted us with a huge room that has a great little kitchen, two recliners and enough space to actually share with 2 bicycles!
We explored the neighborhood and found a couple of restaurants and a small grocery store (the Airport Food Market whose name at home would not conjure up someplace where you would want to buy your groceries). We did some bag organizing, some blogging and reading and otherwise just followed the “slow and low” plan. We were fading by 9PM and asleep before 10.
Tuesday was the start of the tour. We were both up by 6 and organized and ready to go pick up the car by 9. We also started doing some research on pronunciations – listening to New Zealanders and Maoris on line showing how various words are pronounced. “Wh” for example is pronounced as “f”.
While waiting in the motel’s reception area for the driver we chatted with the woman at the desk about our trip. She has family on the South Island as well as the North Island. She said there is a “friendly” rivalry between the two. South Islanders refer to themselves as “the Mainland”, and North Islanders when returning from the South Island say “Welcome to New Zealand”. Lots for us to learn while we’re here.
Apex car rental was only a few miles from the motel. Just long enough to chat with the driver about our tour and the weather. This week is their start of Spring, and he indicated that along with the warmer weather there will also be a lot of pollen in the air. Explains the sneezing when we were out walking yesterday.
When we turned into the road where Apex was located you could see a huge parking lot with literally hundreds of cars there. Everything went smoothly, all the paperwork was in order, and after signing a form that made sure that we understood that they drive on the left here we went out to get the car. Stopped by this translucent map of New Zealand on the way to the lot. We are going to all of those places!
The lot attendant took photos of the car, inside and out, to document its current condition. Hopefully it looks close to those photos when we return it in a couple of months. The first trip was a really short drive to Natural High, the bike and adventure travel store where we were to pick up two bikes and a car rack.
The tag line on their sign says “adrenaline dealers” (our slow and low motto is definitely not aligned with their target market). The bikes were waiting for us and the two guys in the shop were incredibly friendly and helpful. We took the bikes out the parking lot for a spin and then got the bike rack set on the car and the bikes loaded. They got some extra padding for the bike rack to keep it from scratching the hatchback, and after a couple of different options we settled on bungee cords to hold the bikes on the rack. This is what we’ll look like as we navigate New Zealand:
Hopefully we’ll close the back door before driving off – and hopefully we’ll remember that the driver gets in on the right side. The trip back to the motel was short and uneventful. The only error was not remembering that the windshield wiper and turn signal columns are “backward” as well. One other “backward” thing that we discovered is the brakes on the bikes. The left lever is for the rear brake.
We then moved in to supply gathering mode, starting with a trip to a local town centre shopping mall. That was amazing. Hard to describe this mall and I didn’t feel right about taking pictures. Lots of small shops crammed with stuff, stores with American clothing which seems to be team and logo polos, jerseys, etc. small markets for fish, meat, other staples. As we entered there was suddenly a loud blast of music and right in the middle of the mall was a big exercise class happening. No spandex or Lululemon in that crowd. Mostly middle aged plus people getting their dance steps on in some sweatpants or whatever they happened to be wearing. Most of the shoppers and exercisers were polynesians who account for about 25% of the population of New Zealand. It was a fun place! We then hit a BJs like grocery store and a Target like (sort of but way less fancy) department store picking up stuff like basic food supplies, cooler, etc. Tomorrow we are off to Bay of Islands.