Day One – Auckland to Paihia

The carefully orchestrated plan to sleep for the best part of our nine-hour night flight from Singapore to Auckland in order to arrive refreshed and rejuvenated was of course doomed to failure. Between us we managed no more than a couple of hours of fitful slumber while everyone around us had slipped effortlessly into a comatose state within minutes of the aircraft leaving the tarmac. Staggering through Arrivals like refugees we perhaps lacked the sort of fizzy disposition engendered by finding ourselves as far away from home as it’s possible to get (without leaving planet Earth).

Picking up our hire car was straightforward, less straightforward was keeping up the persona of the seasoned traveller, perfectly at ease with driving a strange car in a strange country. However, we managed to convince the nice young man at the hire car office that we weren’t about to drive a perfectly decent Hyundai off the side of a mountain and were duly presented with a set of keys. A swift ‘long black’ coffee was knocked back in the hope that it would keep me alert in spite of the sleep deprivation and we set off on the 3 hour drive to Paihia.

I offered to drive the first leg and Julie unfurled our pristine map, working out our route and getting in to full nagivator mode. This ‘mode’ lasted as far as the airport perimeter, after which the ‘mode of complete and utter unconsciousness’ was her lot and yanking the map over herself as a blanket, she took a mighty yawn, smacked her lips together and that was the last I heard of her for the next 220 kms…

Now faced with tackling strange roads, in a strange country, in a strange car I plundered forward. Fortunately, driving in NZ is a dream and is as easy and delightful as travellers tell you it is. The roads are largely empty, mostly in a good state of repair and directions are generally clear and accurate – except curiously in relation to signposting parking which are positively Italian in their accuracy. The drive to Paihia was delightful and uneventful; the road takes you up and down a few hills but is devoid of any ‘wow’ moments.

I stopped off to get a drink and had my first NZ culinary experience in the form of a pie (honey chicken in this case) which was divine; light puff pastry filled with succulent chunks of chicken and lightly fragranced with onion, honey and gravy. Meat pies are considered by some to be NZ’s national dish and as someone who is not particularly bothered about pies, I have to admit to taking a particular shine to the NZ variety.

Paihia is situated 60kms north of Whangerei on the Bay of Islands and is the main tourist town in the area. It has a range of accommodation available, from backpacker hostels to motels, cottages, B&Bs and hotels. We had pre-booked at the upper end of that range at the Paihia Beach Hotel Resort and Spa situated on the main coastal road, facing the beach. Swinging into the car-park and with astounding timing, Julie stirred herself into life and asked if we had arrived at our destination; I responded with a curt ‘yes’ to which she added, ‘oh good. Do you know, I think I must have nodded off!’ I declined to comment.