South and Around the Coromandel Peninsula

February 9, 2010
Up early, with breakfast at the pub underneath the hotel, a very traditional Irish breakfast, with fried potatoes, eggs, beef, and toast and jam with clotted cream. Having taken care of the low cholesterol levels, June stayed with our luggage in the hotel lobby, while I did the short 5 minute walk to the Hertz office to pick up our Camry (I thought that given every other complication in driving on the left, I might as well have a familiar car - that turned out not to be the best idea, as Toyota reverses all the controls on the steering column, and I was forever pushing or pulling or turning the wrong control). Our entire rental had been pre-paid, including the required liability insurance, but the lady who checked me out suggested I add collision and damage waiver insurance. Ordinarily I wouldn’t do that, as both my Amex and Diners Club cards have this insurance included if the rental is charged to them, but in this case the car was part of a package, and thus probably not covered. There were two levels, not very far apart in cost, and I inquired what the difference was. It seemed to be mainly how many questions would be asked in case of damage, with the higher cost insurance simply requiring that “you have to bring the car back.” That’s what I took, and it wasn’t all that long before I discovered that was a good choice.

[Just an aside on rental car insurance. I have had one bad experience with an overseas rental company charging for damage that was not present on check-in. And yes, my credit card insurance did cover it, but not before it was charged to my credit card, which apparently you give permission for, without any recourse, when you charge the rental. Usually when returning a car in another country, one is doing so just before leaving the country, and the last thing you need at that time is a lengthy dispute over alleged damages, so I’m beginning to think that taking out the damage waiver insurance is a good idea.]

Having got the car, I quickly installed my GPS, complete with Australia and New Zealand maps, navigated back to the hotel, picked up June, and then headed south out of Auckland, direction Coromandel Peninsula, and our first night’s stay, the Bushland Park Lodge, near Whangamata. South of Auckland the countryside is not terribly interesting, and we very quickly drove to the seacoast of the Firth of Thames (place names and geographic features in New Zealand seem to be either Maori, or reminiscent of England or Scotland, and sometimes both). The Firth of Thames is a very large bay, into which runs, of course, the River Thames. Travelling along the very narrow coastal road is a very quick introduction to the fact that most New Zealand Roads were constructed for English cars of the 50s and 60s, and even earlier, but are now occupied by mostly Japanese cars of the late 20th century - and a Camry is considered a large car! We stopped at one point for pictures, and down on the beach was a burned out wreck, presumably someone had missed a curve. It was here that I brushed my hand through a bush, and came out with a walking stick insect perched on my hand - a perfect imitation of a dried out twig, complete with flaky bark, and legs. After pictures, we put it back into its bush, and so perfect was the camouflage that we couldn’t see it.

After going around the bottom of the Firth of Thames, we began the journey along the other side, the Firth on the left, the Coromandel Peninsula to the right. At first it’s a series of pretty towns, with beaches, and waterfront facilities, but after a while the road begins to narrow, climb, and get quite curved.

One of the pretty towns we passed through was Tapu (which I later learned was Maori for taboo - which should have been a warning.) Our supplied hints from our travel agency suggested a side trip here of a few kilometres to a water garden with restaurant for lunch, and a tour of something I am sure is very pretty, except ...) The few kilometres were about 8, along a very narrow road, gravel, which in New Zealand includes largish rocks, and the locals call this road, I discovered at our destination, a tire shredder! That turned out not to be our problem; but not far off the main road I first encountered the very common New Zealand one-lane bridge. Not much wider than a car, wood construction, with weeds and bushes obscuring the actual entry onto the bridge. I did what any conscious of driving on the left Canadian would do, went onto the bridge keeping to the left as judged by the railing. Whereupon there was an almighty thump, the car got tossed towards the middle of the bridge, and when I got to the other side I stopped to see what happened. Obscured by the growing weeds was an oddity that I have seen only in New Zealand bridge construction. Bridge railings are attached to a large beam (wood or concrete) called an abutment; usually the abutment is to the outside, and the railing towards the inside of the bridge, but not in New Zealand. The abutments are to the inside of the railing, where if keeping left, not seeing the abutment because of weeds, they are hit by the front wheel! (I suspect that this is a remnant of colonial English construction; I dimly remember bridges constructed like this in the Yorkshire Dales, the Lake District, and Wales - the, we’ve always done it that way syndrome.)

Inspecting my front wheel, it had a very large deformation of the rim, deformed enough that I was surprised the tire had not lost inflation or just come off the wheel. There was nothing to be done except to carry on to our destination, and there seemed to be no vibration or steering problems. In the parking lot at our destination I unloaded the trunk to exchange the wheel for the spare, and noticed another car, a Mercedes, whose driver was doing the same thing; he was a New Zealander who had had the same experience, which made me feel better, except that he discovered that the wheel lugs he needed to attach his steel spare (in place of his alloy wheel - the lugs needed to be longer because of thickness differences) were missing, So he was waiting for a local garage, quite a distance away, to run a set of lugs out to him.

I changed my wheel, had a not bad lunch, and tried to call Hertz road service to see if I could arrange a new spare to be picked up somewhere. No cell service; except that everyone else’s cell phone seemed to be working. My phone hadn’t worked up in the Bay of Islands area either, but I hadn’t worried about it, thinking we were out of range. It had worked in Auckland, but thinking about it that had been sitting almost directly under the Sky City cell tower. I began to suspect that my phone, which had been in my luggage on the trip up north, had been damaged in one of the transfers.

I explained to the restaurant staff that I needed to make a call to a toll-free number, and they graciously let me use their land line to call Hertz. My very apologetic explanation of why I was calling produced a hilarious response; oh, we get that a lot. And, don’t worry, you’re covered. As for how to get another spare, that was problem. After getting our route, I was told that we were going nowhere near a Hertz office until we got to Wellington, where we would turn in the car for our transfer to the South Island.

But, not to worry the Hertz guy said. Just up the road a couple of hours is Coromandel Township, and there are two garages there that service Hertz vehicles; find one of them, tell them your story, have them check out the car to make sure it’s safe, and see what they can do with the wheel; give them this incident number, and they will bill us.

And so we continued, driving back to the main road, very carefully staying to the middle of bridges. Then on up towards Coromandel Township, along narrow roads, but with very pretty views of the Firth, lots of tall ferns the size of palm trees, and lots of photo ops - unfortunately, I was so busy concentrating on driving that I couldn’t see all of it, so June starting snapping pictures with her camera for me to look at later.

In Coromandel we found one of the garages; I told my story, and the mechanic rolled himself under the car, and came back out pronouncing everything to be “good.” Let’s see the wheel then, so I unpacked the trunk, took out the damaged wheel, which produced a pleased grunt, and a command to the “boy,” a twenty-something apprentice to take the tire off. With the tire off, the mechanic took out two great big sledge hammers, and whaled on the rim, until it was back to where it should have been. Another command to the “boy” to put the tire back on, into the trunk it went, and we were told we were good to go until Wellington, when Hertz, presumably, would replace the wheel with a new one. (If this had been somewhere in Canada, I though, we’d have had to wait two days for a rim to be shipped to us; there are advantages to being in what is still a somewhat pioneer society

And on we went, through more gorgeous scenery, with glimpses of high hills and secluded ocean coves, eventually cutting across the peninsula to the Pacific coast. Then down the coast to the town of Whangamata, and inland towards Bushland Park Lodge. Eventually we found ourselves on a gravel road (again) and then had to drive through a ford across a small river, but the GPS insisted that we were on the right track. And we were.

Bushland Park Lodge is a unique place; it only has 5 double rooms, and is run by a German couple, Petra & Reinhard Nickel. He seemingly dropped out in his 40s, went travelling in New Zealand, found this place, bought it, went back to Germany, and brought his girlfriend Petra back as his wife and business partner. He does the books, and he has become a more than fine chef. As I had had some e-mail correspondence with Petra prior to booking, they knew I was of German birth, and we were welcomed by a suggested menu for a German-inspired meal, three courses, cost about Cdn$65 per person (the alternative being driving back out on the gravel road in the dark, to the hamburger joint in Whangamata).

But first, there was the second car incident of the day. When told where to park our car, it involved backing into a narrow space around a curved path, guarded on one side by the Reinhard’s very large Porsche Cayenne, which, because of the curved path in, had the nearest front wheel fully cranked out. So, in backing in, I avoided the Porsche but not the wheel, putting a large dent into the plastic bumper shell. After establishing that his car was ok, our Reihhard told me not to worry, and not to call Hertz (again), that he knew how to take care of this. And, I’d had it with driving.

And so we took the offered meal, along with a very nice bottle of New Zealand Riesling at not much more than cost, and it was worth every penny. There was one other English couple in residence, who also joined the meal, and with desert the Reinhard offered, at no charge, several tasters of single malt scotch, which he collects.

This was followed by a trip through total darkness, with only a flashlight where needed, under a totally clear southern sky with absolutely no light pollution (we were probably 25 km from the nearest small town). No telescope was needed for amazing views of the Milky Way and the Southern constellations. The destination was a small glow worm grotto, glow worms being native to New Zealand, usually found in caves, but here in a small cavity in a rock wall, with ferns and lichens supporting them, glowing away!

And then to bed, in total stillness.