Paihia Pandemonium

Some days are somehow always going to be more eventful than others. Today was one of “those” days.

On paper the plan seemed pretty straightforward. All we had to do was drive our rental cars from Auckland to Paihia, in the beautiful bay of islands. It was supposed to be around a 3 hour drive, meaning that we would arrive around lunchtime. It didn’t work out that way.

It certainly started out well. The breakfast buffet at the Naumi Airport Hotel was absolutely wonderful, with a vast array of hot and cold options to choose from. It tasted even better when we discovered that we did not need to pay for it. Apparently, it was included in our room tariff.

You can imagine our amusement when we later found out that David and Carol were told that it would cost them an extra $39 per person per day for breakfast. That was enough to make David cry poor and head out for some meagre offering from the nearest supermarket. For some reason, David was not happy when we described to him just how fantastic the (free) breakfast was.

After checking out of the hotel we spent (ie wasted) some time trying to get Android Auto working on the rental car. We failed miserably and decided to head off with just the mobile phone navigation to guide us out of the city. This is always a sure recipe for marital disharmony.

At least I had the wisdom to bring along a set of walky talkies to maintain communication between the vehicles. With only one button to operate, you would think it would be simple to grasp the basics. “Press the big button to talk and take your finger off to listen”. How hard could that be ? Apparently for a female, that is just too complicated.

We spent the first couple of minutes with Maggie pushing buttons at random, while apparently Andrea repeated the process in the following car. “Just PRESS the black button to talk” I yelled. It was still too complicated for her. “This thing is dumb” she replied. Well something is dumb, but it wasn’t the walky talky.

With this ridiculous charade being played out in both vehicles we made our way into the peak hour Auckland traffic. Within the first kilometre there was no sign of the second car. Then followed a flurry of mobile phone calls between the vehicles. “Turn left, go ahead, right lane, where are we? , I can’t see you, etc, etc”. It really was hard to listen to.

Somehow we finally managed to emerge unscathed on the northern side of the city and the two vehicles formed a mini convoy. The women had finally (almost) managed to work out the one button communication system, and things looked like they would go smoothly from that point on.

About an hour out of Auckland our nerves were all so shot that we knew that it must be time for a coffee stop. The first likely opportunity arose when we reached a small town with the unpronounceable name of Kaukapakapa. Like many similar towns in New Zealand, it appeared to be frozen in time, somewhere in the 1950s.

We all walked into the General Store and were met with an old circular dining table, several upholstered chairs and various other pieces of old furniture. The girl seemed both surprised and delighted to see so many customers and made sure that we were welcomed with coffee and cake. Such places might still exist somewhere in Australia, but certainly nowhere where we were ever likely to visit.

After morning tea we had a (very) long walk to the toilets, but were delighted to discover that they were spotlessly clean. I made the observation that they were actually much cleaner than our own toilet at home. For some reason that did not go down well.

After a spectacular drive along a winding road we found ourselves gazing in amazement at some rugged islands just off the coast. This was worthy of a stop to take some pictures. We pulled over into a roadside viewing area. I climbed out and started walking to the top of the vantage point.

Suddenly my attention was diverted by Maggie yelling something at me. Although my hearing is perfect, it took me some time to decipher her shouts. Apparently in my hurry to see the view I had accidentally locked Gael in the back seat of the car. She had been banging on the window trying to get someone’s attention. Oh well, these things happen sometimes.

Rather than walk all the way back down to Maggie, I threw the car key to her. I did not take into account that a strong wind was blowing. It took hold of the keys and blew them straight over the electric fence at the side of the path. Sorry Gael.

The keys were eventually retrieved and Gael was released from car captivity. She managed to get a brief glance at the view before it was time to get rolling again.

Soon afterwards we started to get hungry and thirsty. It was already 1.30 pm and well past lunchtime. By this time Maggie was driving and I was looking out for a bakery. I saw a likely looking place and told Maggie to pull in. It wasn’t that simple. To get there we had to go round a roundabout and then drive about halfway back to Auckland to do a U Turn.

The previous evening Kerry had suffered a mobile malfunction while trying to insert the travel SIM into her iPhone. She forgot to put the SIM into the little tray and managed to lose the SIM into the internals of the phone instead. This was not a good outcome, so I promised that we would be on the outlook for a mobile phone repairer along the way. Easier said than done.

It was not unto we reached Whangerei that Google told us such a repair facility existed there. We made a detour. When Kerry took the phone inside, the guy said it was simple job and he could have it done in only 2 hours. We headed to Harvey Norman instead.

The eager sales guy did his best to sell her the latest $1500 iPhone, but she opted for the $77 model instead. It should be OK to get her through the next couple of weeks.

At least the time spent in Whangerai was not wasted. I finally managed to get Android Auto working, meaning that we had real GPS navigation for the rest of the drive.

It was now about 4.00 pm and we still had a hundred km to drive. Some short drives are like that. We finally rolled into Paihia soon after five, only to discover that the hotel could not find our reservations. At such times, the rule is to NOT PANIC. As it turned out the reason for the lack of reservations was simple – we were at the wrong hotel !

It was a real relief when we finally reached the correct hotel and were able to check in to our rooms. Andrea said that she would bring the second walky talky to our room so that I could charge it for the next day. About an hour later, she still hadn’t appeared.

This was because she had lost the little gadget. Adrea and Greg had apparently searched their room, their luggage, the car and half the motel looking for the little sucker without success. It was only when Greg slammed the boot in anger that it slid from the roof of the car. So that was where they had put it !

After all the excitements of the day, we all needed a nice dinner to relax over. After walking back to the town, we found a delightful café right on the waterfront. The food and service was excellent and it proved to be just what we all needed. With the arrival of David and Carol, our group has now grown to 8.Read more