I'm up in the hills outside of Albany somwhere, sitting in OUR "NEW" CAR - a '74 Ford Escort, purple - all our stuff casually tossed in the back. The bike was atop the car on the roof rack, but Jim had to un-bunjie it to ride back down into Albany for more oil. The car is stuck in the middle of an oil change!
We've owned it less than 24 hours! Things happen quickly in New Zealand - yesterday late morning we test-drove a Hunter in Orewa - an o.k. car, but the dealer wouldn't go below $2,000 and it wasn't with that we agreed.
We broke camp, loaded up the tandem, and began pedalling. The dealer had suggested we go into Albany - plenty of used cars there we found - had to go to the pub for a beer and to discuss the pro's and cons of 3 we found at 3 different dealers: a light gren '71 Hunter at Peter Rees (young guy who helped us reminded me of the Brinton boys), an old brown car (make?), which was only $995 but ahd shitty transmission, and a dark gr. Ford Escort (Mike, the salesman, drove us up into the hills, then had Jim drive - he was very friendly and personable) - we finally agreed on the Hunter being the most "us."
So we returned there, and the dealer agreed to $1600 cash (asked $1900( - the papers were almost filled out when Jim spotted the purple Escort. The dealer refused to go below $1,900, but since we liked it best out of all we'd seen, we went for it.
We had dinner at the local pub (same table we'd sat at to discuss the cars), then began a night time drive, thru rain, up north of Orewa to Warkworth, where we FINALLY found a motor camp. It was dark & raining and we set up camp as quick as we could as we were covered with insects (ugh!) - but it went fast and once quickly inside we settled in to sleep. Got up early this a.m., quickly broke camp and drove into Warkworth for b'fast by the river at a picnic table - a few items from local bakery and made our own coffee.
Jim is gonna be gone for a while...it's a long bike ride and it'll be uphill all the way back! It's really been a pleasure being in the car - no question about it, a car is the way to travel over these endless hills - I hope that "Henry" will run o.k. again! I know nothing of these things!
He's back already - less than half an hour - we're re-organinzing ourselves and gettin' ready to HEAD SOUTH!
LATER We stopped off Hwy 1 in Papatoetoe, had some lunch, chatted with the woman who worked there, walked about town looking for clothes (I got flops, J. got sweatshirt & shorts), then stopped in the butchers to ask for Gordon (shop next door's recommendation) and asked him about the quickest route to Clevedon (he used to be a taxi driver!)
Eventually we hit the water and it was incredibly beautiful!
