Here’s a link to one of our first Panamanian pics.

*** 1 day later updates: ***
1. Got luggage at 17:30 today. Piece of cake.
2. Leaving tomorrow for the Canama Panal, and hopefully out of PC to somewhere more west (El Valle?).
3. Smart me, Cindy points out that this computer I´m now using was right next to me all through the torment of writing last night´s mail on my phone. Thanks Cindy.

Oh man we are so clean today.
Talk soon,
-us

We decided to skip Cape Reinga, the northernmost point of New Zealand, and its famous lighthouse, because of the long time it would take us to get there and the fact that the stories about it didn’t sound all that mind-blowing.

We got to the Raetea Forest campsite in the late afternoon, found ourselves a nice parking spot next to the river and started to make dinner. The second we took out our cooking gear it started to rain! First a few drops, but after a while it started to get a bit more serious, so after cooking (and eating) at super speed, we threw all the things into the van and hopped inside. Oh well, guess it will be an early night..

It rained like mad, all through the night. It’s a good thing that Gramps is all nice and warm inside…

The next morning it finally stopped raining and when the sun came out, the whole world looked like a different place. We were in the middle of a cloud and there was a rainbow right in front of us. It was really magical. Yep, it’s gonna be another great day..

Today we’re driving some more on the coast, past many picturesque beaches and towns. We had lunch near Paihia beach, visited Haruru falls, and headed towards Puketi forest from there. We found in our DOC campsites booklet that there should be a basic conservation campsite in this forest and we wanted to see if it was worth the 7$ per person to spend the night there. We arrived at the campsite early in the afternoon and decided quite fast that it wasn’t worth the money, since there was no gate (so no extra safety), the cooking facilities were not to be used because of the fire ban, and so the little facilities that did exist – didn’t seem worth our money. Too bad, it was a nice location, totally concealed in the midst of the forest.

We dug through all our brochures and came up with a place we found in “Jasons Camping and Holiday Parks Guide” (free booklet available at any i-SITE), a campground / hostel called “The Welcome Swallow” in Matauri Bay. We gave them a call and they told us they had plenty of space and warm showers (the magic words!). The price would be 10$ a person, which seemed far more reasonable than the DOC campsite (due to the lack of facilities of the latter) so we headed for that direction. We were planning to go to the Bay of Islands anyways, so it kinda worked out perfectly like this.

The Welcome Swallow was extremely welcoming. We parked our van behind the main building and enjoyed the kitchen facilities, cozy common room and showers throughout. We had a great dinner and relaxed afterwards in the living room. And since we were the only ones there, it kinda felt like it was ‘our’ living room. Was nice to sit up straight for a change.. (no offense Gramps!)

Mister “Trouble” Carter hadn’t only been super nice to us, he was also quite useful since he knew to tell us exactly how to get to the Waipu Caves we were looking for the previous day. Apparently, the fact that they are called “Waipu” caves, does not mean that they have to be located anywhere near Waipu. Makes perfect New Zealand sense. This would not be the last time the Kiwi names would misdirect us along our trip.

We found the caves quite easily this time (road directions can be magical), took our flash light and headed into the darkness. After some “no freaking way” and “I’m definitely not going in there” from my side, we finally went into the cold water of the cave (thanks to some persuasion and patience on Ohad’s side) and walked slowly into the darkness. When we were far away enough from the entrance we turned off our flash lights. We thought it to be pitch black all around us, but when our eyes got used to the darkness a bit more we finally saw it, right there above our heads and covering the whole ceiling like a starry, starry night: glow worms! Well.. at least, we think they were glow worms. Or actually also not accurate, since we found out later, that we were apparently looking at the poop of the glow worms, since this is supposed to be the ‘glowing’ part. How romantic

After we got out of the cave we headed for Whangarei, capital of Northland region. We passed by the i-SITE (visitor information center) of Whangerei, and they recommended us to take a walk in the AH Reed Kauri Park and have a peek at the Whangarei Falls.

The park was really beautiful. It’s almost unreal how you can feel in the middle of a forest, whilst being in the middle of a big town. It was completely secluded, trees everywhere, canopy walkways and in the end.. the Whangarei waterfalls! We were very impressed and enjoyed the short (60 min) walk immensely. If you have the chance to go there, you definitely should – it’s free and a lot of fun, and the walks range between 15 minutes and 1.5 hours.

At the Whangarei i-SITE they also told us that it was not allowed to wild camp anywhere in the Northland region, due to unpleasant events in the recent past. They also told us to keep a good eye on the car at all times since there was some sort of car gang operating in the North, that was systematically breaking into cars and stealing whatever they could get their hands on, sometimes including the car itself. Not such great news.. We decided not to take any chances, and head for a DOC campsite in Whananaki. By the way, you can find all the DOC campsites, also known as Conservation Campsites, on their website or in a special booklet that you can get for free in any i-SITE or DOC visitor center in New Zealand. Having this booklet is highly recommended! Some of the campsites are free, some cheap, and a few are fully serviced. Either way they are the best budget option if you’re traveling with your own set of wheels, and most certainly the best way to be a “green” traveler.

On the way to the campsite we passed by the famous Kawakawa toilets in Kawakawa (duh). The internationally renown Austrian artist and architect Friedrich Hundertwasser lived in Kawakawa for 25 years and personally designed these toilets. I have to admit, it was one of the more fun visits to the public toilets

We arrived at the campsite in Otamure Bay (Whananaki) in the late afternoon. It was a cute campsite (7$ pp), not too big, with a nice view of the sea. We parked Gramps in front of the water, made ourselves some dinner and went to sleep. Zzzzzz…

We passed by Wellsford on the way and took a drive along the beautiful east coast in the direction of Waipu. Our goal was to find the Waipu caves, which Geert and Anna (our friends from Pentlands) told us about. One of these caves was supposed to be a cave with glow worms, and unlike other caves equipped with this attraction – this one could be entered without a guide and for free. We passed by Waipu cove (apparently not a typo on our map), then Waipu itself, but alas, no cave or glow worm in sight. Oh well..

After driving all day in search of glow worms, we got pretty hungry and just when we were about to go hunt down a supermarket, we drove past this nice looking café/restaurant next to the road (close to Ruakaka) called “The Sharing Shed“. Such a great name. This must be a sign that we should go out to dinner! And since one should never ignore a good sign, we decided to go in and have a bite.

It was a very cute place, lots of wood all around and a sweet garden in the back. After eating we got to talking with the owner of the place called Steve Carter, or as he would like to call himself Steve “Trouble” Carter. He was a real nice guy who knew a lot about New Zealand, and he caught us up on some history and put some places on our maps that we should visit if we get the chance. After this, Ohad asked if he could maybe use the piano, which wasn’t a problem, except if you count the piano being gruesomely out of tune a problem. All good, we had fun regardless and Ohad finally got to touch a piano again. He also had to put his name on the Sharing Shed’s Wall-of-Fame, which was pretty cool

We asked Steve if maybe he knew a place for us to park Gramps and spend the night, and he told us to park at the back of the café. Perfect! Told ya it was a good sign to start with

We decided to take it super-easy, so we didn’t make it to Northland just yet. The first day we drove through many tiny towns and past several beautiful beaches. We ended our day at a gorgeous beach in Orewa. It seemed like the perfect first ‘sleeping’ spot for the three of us (yes, Gramps is very much involved in this trip ). We made bolognese on the beach strip and crawled into our oh-so warm and comfortable bed. Life is (very) good.

The next day we drove through Puhoi and Warkworth. The scenery was beautiful. We decided to make our dinner at Omaha Beach, where we had our very first swim in the sea!! It was wonderful, even though a bit cold.

At Omaha beach we were introduced to the miracle of NZ public barbecues. These are hot plates placed in parks around the country which you can use either for money or for free (depends where they are) to prepare your food. It’s really kinda awesome, especially considering that it’s almost nowhere in New Zealand allowed to use your own bbq, unless it’s running on gas.

When we finished dinner a police car drove up to us and we were a bit afraid that they would tell us not to spend the night over here. On the contrary! They were really sweet and they just wanted to see if we needed any help. They told us about nice cafes in the neighbourhood and they even gave some tips about where there might be live music at night. How amazing is that?! After this they started to think where we could sleep if we’d go to see the live music and they let us know about a place where it wasn’t officially allowed, but nobody would mind. These New Zealand police officers are definitely something else..

We decided to take the advice of the policemen (because you always should) and we headed for Warkworth, the town that might have some live music. We found the specific pub they sent us to, which was a fun place, but after staying there for an hour and a half it was pretty clear that there wasn’t gonna be any live music. At least not today. You might wonder why we didn’t ask in the bar if there was gonna be live music at some point. Well.. we did. We’re just not yet accustomed to the New Zealand accent, and after asking three times we decided to let it go and just wait and see what would happen. All good, we had a great time anyways .

Around 15:00 we decided to check on Gramps and we called Mark, who told us that he just finished fixing him and is just about to give him a test drive, and then we could come pick him up. We came to the garage and learned that unfortunately, even though the carburetor is now indeed clean (“reconditioned”), and the coughing and narcolepsy should cease and decist, there is still a problem of Gramps occasionally shifting out of gear. Mark told us to give it a try that evening and if it becomes unbearable we should come and see him again. Too bad he didn’t tell us that – as we learned about two weeks later from some other mechanic that we just bumped into – we should simply check if we were out of transmission fluid, which we were. Completely. 2 liters later, and Gramps would be as good as new. Well, almost . We thanked mark, and said goodbye to him and to 335$.

That night we asked Vinnie to do what some hostels allow: still stay in Pentlands and use the facilities (kitchen, showers etc.), but sleep in our van in the parking lot instead of taking up a room. This dropped the price from 64$ to 36$ (for two people). So, that night we celebrated staying our first night in Gramps, which was actually very comfortable. Good news for us, since we’re gonna be doing that for awhile .

Tomorrow we finally leave Auckland. General direction: Whangarei. But we won’t be getting there for awhile .

At the next garage we met Mark, who checked out the car and told us he had to clean out the carburetor. Unfortunately he wouldn’t have time to do so until the next morning, so he told us to get back later that day and leave Gramps with him overnight, so that he would be able to start fixing him early in the morning.

We figured there was very little use in getting all depressed about fixing the car, so we decided to make it a fun day. It turned out we were luckier than expected, as we saw the big Auckland Domain park right in front of us, and even more so when we found the Auckland War Memorial Museum right in the middle of the Domain. We had heard that this was an interesting museum with impressive collections about nature, Māori culture and New Zealand history. The entrance fee was donation based, which we found to be a bit awkward since there is a paying booth at the reception where you have to declare how much you want to pay for visiting the museum. At first they tried to tell us that 10 dollar a person was the ‘minimum’ donation, but after some more inquiring they told us that a donation is not a must (really weird that they didn’t tell us so right away). We paid them 5 dollars and went in.

The museum was beautiful! It was HUGE and had several rooms with different ‘themes’. The ones we enjoyed most were definitely the more nature-oriented ones, including quite a collection of living creatures, and a very interesting exhibition on volcanoes.

After spending several hours in the museum we went out and took a stroll through the Domain. It was really an amazing park. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed strolling past the fields, duck ponds and statues in the gardens. Before we knew it, it was 17:00 and we had to go and deliver Gramps. With pain in our hearts we turned Gramps over to Mark (who promised to take good care of him) and walked all the way back to Pentlands. Really hope Gramps will be okay..
Guess we’ll know more tomorrow morning, we’ll be keeping our fingers crossed..

We woke up in the morning, full of energy and good vibes for our first real drive around with Gramps. We decided to take it westward to the black sand beach called Piha.

One of the first things we started realizing quickly was that the New Zealanders are not very keen on accurate (nor abundant) road-signing. Some signs send you in a certain direction, and then there is simply no next sign to that destination; some signs have uncertain pointing direction (e.g. a sign showing three exits out of a four-exit roundabout or a sign with some text and two arrows in opposite directions); some signs are showing you where to go just a few meters too late; and some signs are just not there . This was going to be a strong recurring motive throughout our whole driving / walking experience in NZ.

A long story short: On the way to Piha we got so lost, that we somehow drove “West Coast Highway” 5 times. The signs were probably mostly to blame, but it sure didn’t help that yours truly was stupid enough to keep calculating general direction by the sun (good idea), while depending on the fact that the sun is in the south around midday (less good idea when in the southern hemisphere). Very smart indeed.

During our drive we got quite frustrated when Gramps started coughing like the gramps that he is, and even shut down on us when he didn’t drink enough fuel. A quick text to Jonathan revealed that the problem is perhaps not well know but the “fix” for it is already there, in the shape of some laundry pins on the accelerator. Now would be a good time to mention that, while still considering Jonathan a kind and honest fellow traveler, we realised quite fast that his standards of taking care of a vehicle were considerably lower than ours. Some fixes would have to be made to get rid of Gramps’ pneumonia, and then perhaps some more :-/.

After a sharp curve on a cliff road, Piha was finally revealed to us, wearing its beautiful black sands as promised, and in its midst stood proudly Lion Rock, roaring in silence. We talk a leisurely walk on the beach, and 50% of us climbed Lion Rock to observe the magnificent views and read a bit about the Māori relationship with the place.

On our way back we stopped by in a very cute cafe overlooking the beach, just in time for the sunset. For some odd, unknown reason the cafe, whose patrons were one more family and an elderly couple, insisted on playing extremely hard rock in loud volume, which a few screamy minutes later was replaced by extremely hard trance music. After about 15 long minutes of that nonsense the staff finally came to their senses and mellowed it down to normal music. I have never had such a pleasant time listening to Elton John in my life.

On the way back Gramps had two more narcolepsy bursts, which pretty much determined our plans for tomorrow. Gramps is going to the doctor.

The decision has been made: We’re not going to rent. Even the scenario of (1) buying a van, (2) van completely breaking down and then (3) buying another van would still be cheaper than renting one. So we started looking at the ‘for sale’ ads in our hostel, which were quite abundant.

Before too long we found Jonathan, a French traveler who was selling his ’89 Nissan Vanette VX. Unlike Stanki’s van, it had a double bed – with a VERY good mattress at that – and a power steering system, an extremely important trait in such a heavy vehicle, especially if you’re about to travel the whole country with it.

We arranged for a test drive up to Mount Eden the following day. The test drive went extremely smooth up and down the steep road, the van didn’t seem to have such a hard time and was relatively easy to drive. Lucky me that my dad always had sorts of vans and other big cars, so I had plenty of practice for this trip. True, he didn’t teach me how to drive on the wrong side of the road, but still. Thanks dad!

Jonathan was selling lots of maps and all sorts of useful equipment with the van, like kitchen utensils, a cool box, some tools and – most importantly – a fishing rod, which we’re still trying to get rid of every time we meet a local who might be interested in fishing. No luck so far. All in all, the deal seemed quite fair, and Jonathan appeared to be a friendly and trustworthy person. He showed us some downsides, a half-broken handle, a bump in the back corner, the rear view mirror wasn’t perfectly screwed in (already fixed by now), but nothing was too alarming. He even tried to help us fix the dead left speaker for about half an hour, but when we realized it’s both the speaker AND the wiring that’s malfunctioned – we gave it up. It was too bad for us, music lovers as we are, but it sure wasn’t a deal breaker. We shook hands, and the deal was sealed.

During our talking it appeared that Jonathan, blessed be he, had an extra two+ months of third party insurance, which he would not be using. A quick call to the insurance company arranged that our names would be put on the policy as well, et voila! Free insurance for the Jack-leavers! We took it one extra step and signed up for a 6-month AA membership (99$, not available for a shorter period of time ), which made sure that if we ever got stuck around nowhere – they will come in a shining armor and tow us away. We even got with our membership a full set of excellent maps of all the NZ regions and big towns, that would otherwise cost quite some money. We were satisfied.

The next day we went to the post office together and changed ownership (9.50$), only then learning that the ownership papers would take a week to be delivered to Pentlands by post, so we’d have to be in Auckland for that. No problem: The obvious plan was formed – we drive through the Northland region up and down, and since the way out of Northland must pass through Auckland again – we’ll pick up our ownership papers then.

Only thing left was to name our new traveling home slash best buddy before we hit the road. It didn’t take us long to realize that this is probably the oldest vehicle we would ever drive, almost as old as we are <cough cough>, and so it was settled. Welcome to the family, Gramps!