Joe's Post Dec 30

Dec 27 Joe’s post
Did I mention the milk when you check in to a motel? Here, all motels assume that you will be at least be drinking the tea they provide. Well, you can’t drink tea without milk, can you? So when they give you your room key, they also give you a carton, or pitcher of milk. Always. That works well for us, because they also have dishes in the room. Always. And a small refrigerator. Older motels have a two burner stove, the newer ones have only a microwave, so there is not really any cooking you can do but you can eat your cereal in the morning. Life is good.

And palm trees. You see so many pictures of winter sports in NZ, you don’t get the impression that it’s a mediterranian climate in the north. So there are palm trees all over the place. They also have something called tree ferns, which grow like weeds in certain areas. We are about a half hour outside of Wellington, in the process of going from the east coast to the west coast, about a 3 hour drive, if you do it straight through. We are in the Hutt valley, where a good chunk of the Lord of the Rings movies were shot, and there are occasional palm trees here.

The geography is pretty interesting. There is a mountain range that goes down the center of the island, once you get south of Taupo, so east-west travel is limited to a few roads, some of them still gravel. Have gone from west to east to get from Taupo to Napier, and then going south from Napier, we were in a climate with scenery much like Eastern Washington. The town of Masterton, where we were last night, reminds me of Wenatchee. It was very warm today, probably 80, which is as warm as it’s been for us the entire trip. Then we went over the mountains, and it’s cool in North Hutt. But it’s also late, about 8:30.
Tomorrow we play golf at the Royal Wellington Golf course.

Dec 30
We did indeed play the Royal Wellingoton, the only golf course in the country which has been blessed by the Queen. It’s a very, very nice course and club. Not much else to say about it. We played with some very nice people, who are our age, one a recently widowed woman, and the other was a guy who was an excellent golfer, and played with Prince Andrew, when he was here. We saw the picture in the clubhouse.

The golf club is in the town of Upper Hutt, in the Hutt valley , twenty minutes northwest of Wellington proper. Wellington is very nice, a lot like Seattle, but less hectic, because it’s smaller. We were there only long enough to catch the ferry to the south island, but will spend more time on the way home to see Axel and Inge’s kids, who are taking some university courses there.
Then on to Nelson, where we spent the night, just because it was late. Tomorrow we see Able Tasman Ntl park, which is supposed to be spectacular. It is closed to vehicular traffic, so the only ways to get in are to walk or take a water taxi. We will do the latter, then walk for a few hours and the water taxi will pick us up later.

Today is the 30th of Dec, and we are within a few miles of the entrace to the Tasman Park. For whatever reason this little town, Motueka, is like Port Angeles, I guess, except the water is warm enough to swim in. There are bazillions of people, and we can’t figure out why. The locals say it’s the weather, this place is very warm, and it’s just where people go to hang out and party, and new year’s eve is tomorrow, so there will be a lot of partying. Went to the supermarket to buy stuff to eat tomorrow on the trail, and all the kids were loading up on beer. Lots of wineries here and fruit trees growing. In a month or so it will be picking season. I’m not sure what they do for labor, since ….. like… no one lives here.

And now a word about sinks and stoppers. Every sink in the country has rubber stoppers. Wonderful idea, because they work. All the time.

Bridges …. Road bridges. The roads in the country, with the exception of the very heavily (relatively speaking) travelled national Route 1, will have single lane bridges that cross small rivers and creeks. You are going 60 miles an hour, and there is a sign for a one lane bridge ahead! The sign indicates who has the right of way, and as is most likely there is nobody else on the road, you just barrel right on across.

The traditioal architecture in the Bathrooms is to have the window above the sink. The practical effect of that is that there are no power sockets, and if they are they are low wattage things for an electric shaver. Noone planned for hairdryers. The newer motels have this figured out, but there are a lot of things that are not updated. So one of the things we bought and are happy to have is a 12 foot extention cord. Good for the computer too.
Looking forward to seeing the south island. Everone says, oh the south island is soooooo much prettier than the north island. We are incredulous, because the north island was a complete delight. But we’ll see.