Bay of Islands

I picked my Motorhome up on the 20th. It took quite a long time for them to get all the paperwork done, then my vehicle had a dead secondary battery, so they had to switch everything over to a different one. It was almost 3:00 PM when I finally pulled out of the lot, and then I immediately stopped at a nearby supermarket to stock up for the trip. By the time I started heading North, I hit the Auckland rush hour. I have to admit that I wasn’t looking forward to driving through the city right off the bat. So when I realized that I would be hitting the rush hour, mostly on surface streets (no freeway going through Auckland), I was even more apprehensive. It turns out that driving a vehicle 4 times the size you are used to, on the opposite side of the road, with half of the population of New Zealand around you isn’t as bad as it might seem. Everybody was going really slow, that was OK by me. I was so hemmed in that I couldn’t get in a wrong lane even if I tried. New Zealand drivers seem to be a bit more courteous than some North American drivers. Nobody flipped me off or took a shot at me. See if you can get through LA rush hour without one of those two things happening. I’m not having any stress over driving on the left side of the road. In the last 20 years, I’ve lived in far more left hand drive countries than right hand drive. Even though I didn’t drive very much in those countries, even riding around seems to acclimate you. Being on the left side of the road doesn’t seem a bit weird to me anymore. I still think that roundabouts are pretty freaking weird though!

I had planned on just going a short way North or Auckland for my first night, so that worked out well with my late departure. The next morning, I continued northward on SH1, but “big” N/S Highway. The roads are good, but they are small. SH1 is mostly just 2 lanes but has quite a few passing lanes. Pretty easy driving. When I got off SH1 to go to my next campsite at Otamure Bay, the road got much smaller and very twisty. I think when they were building the road, every time they encountered a cow they went around it instead of shooing it out of the way. It rained heavily all afternoon and night while I was at Otamure Bay, but it was sunny and nice this morning so I had the first opportunity to take a picture of my ride.

From Otamure Bay, I headed on up to the region called the Bay of Islands and I’m spending the night in a campground near Haruru Falls.

At Otamure Bay campground in my home on the road:


This is the beach at the campground


Looking back from the beach toward the campground. See the crowds I had to put up with! Well, it’s the weekend, should’t be so bad during the week.


This is Haruru Falls. It’s right behind the campground I’m in for the night: