Psycho Chicken Crosses the Road
Created | Updated Dec 9, 2004
New Zealand; The Longest Possible Journey - Part Seven
The Cream Trip and The Hole in The Rock
Waiting at the hotel at the end of my beach wander was a message from the tour company - a change to my next day's activities: I had been due to take a full day's boat trip, but technical difficulties meant that I could only have an afternoon's cruise - recommended activity for the morning as a bus tour of Keri-Keri. When the tour rep called the following morning to make the necessary arrangements, I couldn't face another minute on a bus. I turned down the tour of the world's official Big Mac free zone in favour of a chilled out morning and hangover recovery before taking a cut down version of the island cruise in the afternoon. I found an internet cafe and drank coffee and formulated my first email postcard home.
The Cream Trip came about from the days before there were any roads in the Northland. Each town had its own dairy, since transport of the dairy produce without refrigeration wasn't really feasible over long distances in the North Island's hot summers. When it came to the islands, a boat was required to pick up the cream and milk from the small villages. The boat soon became a lifeline for these tiny communities - delivering goods and ferrying people to and fro. The small number of well-to-do tourists who were visiting New Zealand were also prone to hitching a lift to see the beautiful Bay of Islands from the water, and pretty soon the boats were making more money showing rich people pretty views than they were from shifting milk around. When the sea routes were replaced by roads and the boats by refrigerated tankers, the shipping companies carried on, but as tour companies, and to this day they do 'The Cream Trip' around the islands on a daily basis.
There's a wide variety of boats to choose from and all have shacks on the quayside where you can book up for any number of infinitely varied routes. Some offer swimming with dolphins, windsurfing and scuba diving; others offer high speed adrenaline rushes, while some simply offer sedate sight seeing for the less thrill-oriented tourist. 'The Excitor' which passed our sedate cruiser as we left the shelter of the bay offers the chance to fly around the bay in a high power jet boat. It slowed down alongside so that the contents of two big green shag buses could wave at the sad tourists, then left us soaked in its wake.
B*****ds.
One of the most popular sights on The Cream Trip (which I suspect has been added to the route since the demise of its original purpose) is the 'Hole In The Rock'. Exactly what it says on the tin - it's a rock formation in the bay which is essentially a gap in the rockface large enough to get a boat right through. The skilful sailor can pilot his vessel right into the gap and hold steady there for a while. The echo effects from the water lapping up the sides of the cavern are bizarre and, when you emerge on the other side, the conditions are often adequately different to give it all the feeling of a trans-dimensional portal.
Just to show they'd thought of everything, those of us who were heading back to Auckland that afternoon changed boats at the turn around point, to ensure our rendezvous with the coach South. When we were directed to the last jetty I realised that we were travelling home on The Excitor...
COOL...!
Driving Aotearoa
The journey home was long and I'd hit the wall. For the first time ever I slept on a coach trip. We stopped briefly for a snack at a roadside cafe run by a very eccentric German gentleman and his family, where my blood-sugar was so screwed that I dropped my plate of food on the floor and took a good few seconds to realise. The driver was obviously under strict instructions to keep the chat and the dilly-dallying to a minimum and just get people back to Auckland safely and swiftly. He dropped me right at my hotel, where I slept and prepared for the next two and a half weeks without a plan. This, I remember thinking, is where it REALLY starts.
What I had planned though, was a rental car to take me where was required. I headed to the depot to pick up my wheels, which would have to get me to the ferry terminal Wellington by lunchtime on Monday, taking in visits to Dave and Sue - ex-colleagues from my days as a consultant-with-a-suitcase. Dave had promised me a night out on the town in Surf-bum paradise, whilst Sue was my last stop in the North Island in Wellington, from where I'd fly to Christchurch.
Ace rental cars offer one-way hires between Auckland and the capital precisely to cater for arrangements like mine, and they've apparently taken it on as a sort of game whereby each depot tries to fence off its most decrepit wrecks on one another by giving them to un-suspecting tourists to drive from one end of the island to the other.
'Ah, you're from the UK - you'll be happy driving on the left then', said the clerk as she gave my license a cursory glance. I didn't pay attention at the time, but looking back now I swear there was a vicious glint in her eye when she paused, and said 'and you'll be happy with a manual too?' I've driven autos during my time in the US and I hate them with a passion. I had suspected I may get lumped with one here too, but as luck would have it, there was a manual which need to be taken back to Wellington. And it was a free upgrade.
When my fine Mazda Familia (a 323 saloon to you and me) was wheeled out of the back the first thing I noticed was the massive scrape which scarred the entire front wing. How it had managed to not take out the headlight is a mystery. Dents and dings were the order of the day all over the car and its off-white paintwork gave it the look of a car that hadn't seen a sponge for some time, despite the fact that it was dripping with grey water having just been washed. Things didn't improve behind the wheel either - whilst I was happy to drive a manual, the three or four previous hirers obviously hadn't been, having wrecked the clutch and left fourth gear on the road somewhere between Rotarua and Te-Awamutu. I considered taking it back but, in the end, decided I would survive. Once out of the city I found that the cassette player didn't work and the un-tuneable radio only came out of one screechy speaker. Ah well. You gotta laugh...
