New Zealand #14 - Island Bay and Oriental Bay - Wellington, North Island

One of my favourite songs, from Crosby, Stills & Nash:

When you see the Southern Cross for the first time
You understand now why you came this way
'Cause the truth you might be runnin' from is so small
But it's as big as the promise, the promise of a comin' day

Evening view from our cottage across Cook Strait to South Island.

My previous post described our very pleasant crossing of Cook Strait on the Interislander ferry Aratere from Picton to Wellington. We dock just after 2 and offload very quickly as there are few passengers on foot. We are the only customer at the rental agency but what should have been an easy transaction goes slightly sideways. Supposedly we are on one rental contract, from Queenstown to Auckland, and simply have to 'exchange' cars since the agencies have separate fleets for the two islands, but the clerk who has been volunteered to come in just to accommodate us doesn't know how to process our contract on-line. He eventually figures this out and gives us a quick orientation to our new SUV, a Mazda CX5, but after he leaves a mild panic ensues when I can’t find a socket to plug in our very essential GPS. I give up and head back into the terminal to see if someone there knows Mazdas, and our clerk, driving out, fortunately sees me and pulls over: the socket is in the bin between the seats, at the front under an overhang, where it can’t be seen! This is just the first of many issues with the CX5 which make me decide eventually that it is the worst vehicle I have ever driven.

Cottage, landlord's cottage on the left, evil Mazda.

Wellington is the first large city we have encountered, and driving here proves more of a challenge than any other place we've been so far. We have obviously left the land of uncluttered roads and one-lane bridges. Leaving the ferry terminal we can’t seem to get on to the first motorway we've seen, so even with GPS installed we have an impromptu city tour going about 5 kilometers in the wrong direction before finding a place to turn around, miss another weird roundabout, and generally have a less-than-pleasant trip to a suburb of Wellington, Island Bay. Our new home for a couple of nights sits on a road, The Esplanade, that hugs the coast with an unobstructed view on to Cook Strait and Taputeranga Island, in days long past an important Maori habitation and in fact a refuge in the early 1800s during a tribal conflict.

Island Bay shore.

For the ferry we checked our large rolling duffles but as walk-ons were each allowed 2 carry-ons, so I was able to carry our very small freezer bag with a few essentials that we didn't want to trash. Other than that however we had run down all our supplies, so en route to our destination we stopped to pick up many many groceries.

Looking back towards our cottage.

The caravan park chain we were using had nothing convenient to Wellington so we found an attractive-looking small 'cottage' on line. Years ago it was in fact a cottage, as were most of its neighbours, but they've been modernized over the years and have full-time occupants. Typical laid-back New Zealand: the owner wanted payment by bank transfer, but because we were traveling and far away from our bank I wasn't sure I could make that work, so asked if he would take cash on arrival - absolutely no problem! He lives next door and wasn't there when we arrived, but everything was as described re: the access code to the front gate and where to find the key.

Another evening view from our front door, Taputeranga Island on the left.

At The Barossa in Oz (see https://steemit.com/travel/@brightongreg/australia-9-the-barossa-south-australia) I introduced you to the concept of Roadtrip Rules. So now Rule #3: on arrival at new accommodation I unload while brightonbonnie checks out the kitchen first, then the rest of the unit. Well after I got a few bags to the front door brightonbonnie informed me there was a problem. There was no place to put all the groceries we had just bought because the fridge and all the cupboards were full! This happened again when we rented privately in Auckland, so this appears to be the norm in New Zealand - enough food is included in the rental price that you don't have to shop! If there are any Kiwis following my posts who can comment on my understanding of this great concept please do...

In this close up of Taputeranga you can see to the left of the large tree on the summit a flat area where the Maori lived and farmed. This is typical of defendable hills they used for their settlements.

We continue to enforce the no-city rule we agreed in Perth about 2 months ago - too many museums and churches seen in our travels so let's focus on people and landscapes - so the next day, which is very pleasant but windy, we walk along the shore into Island Bay proper. Along the way there are some interesting buildings including this one with a rowboat balcony beside a fake lighthouse...

We spend some time chatting with a nice gentleman who is laying out the route for an upcoming marathon who steers us towards Island Bay’s shopping center. It's not actually a 'shopping center' in North American terms but what New Zealanders call the center of smaller towns or suburbs where you go to shop, a 'shopping...' '...center' - makes sense! We pick up a few things forgotten yesterday, but more importantly a couple of boxes I can use to organize our supplies in the back of the SUV.

Oh, and as we started our walk my eye was attracted to this lettered rock just off the main path...

My non-steem name of course is Greg, but you wouldn't know until now that our last name starts with 'T'. So brightonbonnie is Mrs. T, though I've never ever called her that. Spooky, or karma? And for the skeptics, absolutely true - you just can't make this stuff up!

Oriental Bay

Back at the cottage we have a snack lunch, then drive into Wellington, an easier run this time, about 10 minutes to Oriental Bay. It’s an absolutely amazing waterfront area, lots of interesting (and expensive to buy or rent) architecture...

...a few restaurants, young people everywhere wearing fun costumes doing some sort of Amazing Race competition like a tug of war on the beach as a university initiation...

...and several marinas, this one with new shops and condos alongside.

We return to the cottage along the Coastal Drive, described as another of the great coastal drives in New Zealand – so now with the drive between Pancake Rocks and Westport on South Island we’ve done two! And of course after a few pleasant days it's raining again!

Around dinner time we finally meet our landlord, a charter fishing captain, who is away whenever the weather is good enough to fish. We have a nice chat with him about charter fishing and the area, which was mostly settled by Italian immigrant fishermen. To honour them we cook frozen prepared lasagna bought on our way from the ferry!

After a pleasant night's sleep with a breeze off the water I wake at 5, still very dark, and attracted by the lights of two ships inbound to Wellington, in the words of Crosby, Stills and Nash, ‘see the Southern Cross for the first time’ directly south of our cottage over Cook Strait. Another bucket list item done (and Papaette too when we started off in Tahiti, also in the song)! And though there's a lot more we could have seen in Wellington, no-city rules are in effect, and we are keen to get back on the road...

PS - if you've enjoyed this post please check out my first 13 New Zealand posts, the previous 19 posts in my Australia series, and the 3 before that as we started our 90 day roadtrip in Tahiti!

And please join us in my next post as we begin our roadtrip through North Island.

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!steemitworldmap -41.344928 lat 174.776962 long Island Bay Wellington New Zealand d3scr