Transit Day

Today was the end of our journey on the South Island and we are making our way all the way up to the far northern portion of the North Island.

The morning started with a lovely sunrise that lit up the sky over the Remarkables. There is no question as to why they got their name.

We packed up our stuff, had breakfast, and headed to the airport. It was cloudy, so we didn’t get a view as we flew to Auckland, but amazingly the plane was only about half full. That never happens!

We went to get the rental car and they didn’t have it. We had to wait for about 1/2 hour. Jason was not amused. Finally, they brought it over from the International terminal. It was a big gigantic Holden SUV.  It was going to be a pretty long drive up to Taupo Bay, about 4.5 hours. Ugh.

The car was totally decked out with features, from automatic parking, to lane change control. At one point, a car ahead of us slammed on it’s brakes and it triggered an automatic response from the Holden, which included a flashing light indicator and a vibration in the driver’s seat. It also elicited a “bloody hell! my seat is vibrating” from Jason.

We continued Northward.

Several more times during the drive the impending collision indicators were triggered which continued to elicit unappreciative responses from Jason. At one point, Susanne wondered about Jason’s erratic lane change, which turned out to be Jason fighting the lane correcting software. Hmmmm, not good. Finally, after just one too many vibrations in the butt, it elicited what will unquestionably be the quote of the trip…..possibly the quote of a lifetime from him:

“HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO CONCENTRATE ON DRIVING WHEN MY BALLS ARE BEING VIBRATED ALL THE TIME!!!!”

That was good for a solid 15 minutes of laughing by his passengers. It’s really is hard to see how that will be usurped by another quote. It even beat out the square Wombat poop discussion from Australia.

Anyhow, despite the unwelcome vibrations, we did finally make it to Taupo Bay around 5:45 pm. It is a beautiful little beach with a handful of houses and a holiday park. We dragged our mountain of stuff up into the house and checked it out. It’s a bit dated and only has one toilet, despite being promoted as 1.5 bathrooms. It was a tad musty so we opened up all the windows to let the sea breeze and the sound of crashing waves in. The deck was fantastic. All in all, pretty darn nice. We even got a welcome rainbow.

Based on everything else going on in the world, it really is starting to be a challenging calculus as to why we should return. I guess, mostly because we miss our Ms. Sadie who is being spoiled rotten by my niece Jessica and my sister Laura.