Roadtrip Part II

10th July 2016

Roadtrip Part II

We soon arrived in Stratford which is at the foot of Mt.Taranaki. Thinking that it would be fun to spent the night at the base camp car-park at an altitude of about 1100m, we drove up. Up ‘n up it went through a thick green tunnel with odd and eerie looking trees. Gobblin forest they call it. The night up there turned out to be a bit too exciting though as the wind grew strong during the evening – strong enough to make our car shake and vibrate with gusts. Felt a bit like sailing! On top of that it started hailing and within less than half an hour our car and the ground were white. We quickly decided to head back down lest we’d get snowed in with our poorly profiled tires, only a 2WD and no snow chains – of course (we were still in summer mode, not taking this winter serious so far). Winter was finally on and it hid the mountain successfully under its white veil of cloud (which could turn quite grey at times). In those few days that we spent around the mount, we never got to see its glorious stature and its white hat.
The road took us north from there, through lush green shires and past black-sanded coasts as we headed to some blue springs (that Daniel had seen a picture of and now insisted to see it with his own eyes, even though it was a leeway of two hours). We assumed that it was somewhat volcanic or hot, because we had seen similar colours of water in volcanic areas.
As we got there, we found out that it was not hot at all and the clearest and bluest water that we’d ever seen. Apparently 70% of NZ’s bottled water is tapped from this spring. Right at the springs the water has a very deep blue color, and even the flowing river is blue and so clear that I could hardly believe it’s real. – On this particular day Daniel had lost a card game and gambled on jumping into the next body of water. This one was 11ºC ..warm 😀 Brrr! He performed his part acting tough… and neither me nor Chantal could resist getting in touch with such appetising water. So we all had a very chilling and wet but delightful experience.
By that time our road trip was almost at an end with a last stop at Karekare, which is a little place close to Piha on the west coast of Auckland. I had been asked to do a presentation at a film night for a group of locals there, which took place at the local fire station. The place was not big and quickly filled with people so that I ended up giving the talk twice, to two different audiences. It was a wonderful experience. I enjoy doing these talks to small local groups… I feel that I can interact with the people better during my talk and it’s more personal. But nevertheless it is a very tiring thing to do. I never expected that talking could be so tiring. Nervousness and the actual talking must eat up quite some energy. It’s not quite as easy as sailing 😉

Laura