In which taking a left turn is decidedly a good thing.

If I had a car, I’d take a road trip every other weekend. Number one, you get to see more of the country (or any for that matter). Number two, you’d make more friends if you ask for tag-alongs. Number three, they’re a sure-fire way to have fun.

Being the geeky Americans that we are, I recruited my new friend Jackie from Virginia to escape the winds and rain of Wellie for a weekend away up to Taranaki, that just so happened to coincide with the celebrations back in the good old U.S. of A. What better way than to go be independent? It turned into one near-perfect (near for reasons you’ll read later), Mother Nature blessed weekend. I’m used to one fine day out of a two week stretch, but we nabbed a full three days of sun!  The drive up north to New Plymouth was lovely. Our Nissan Sunny, dubbed ‘Oh, Susanna!’ treated us well and Jackie did a gold star winning job of picking out a stellar playlist that included some classics like The Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel. Well done, Jax. We popped off along the way to get (what we later learned was) some world famous fish ‘n chips at George’s in Wanganui. We waited in the queue with the locals, watching the jokes between the regulars and employees, seeing them fold up the newspapers around orders in the mechanical way of experience. The woman behind the counter with her greasy apron and hair net. The sound of batter being deep friend in oil. Oh, chippies, how delicious you are.

One thing I’m still not used to is trying to decipher how long to guestimate for arrival times with the whole metric system. Give me some credit for trying, though! At least it’s more of an overestimation than under. We phoned the hostel thinking we’d be about twenty minutes past their reception closing time of 8pm (the first sign of small town life), and ended up arriving in the next ten minutes. Carole, the doll of a woman who owns the place, laughed it off and not only gave us our own room for the same price, but told us to go to one Irish pub, where we’d meet and surely be welcomed by an Irish couple who’d been living there for the last six months. How could we not?

I have learned that sometimes the best way to integrate yourself into a situation is to just walk up and say hi. Well, Jackie and I walked into Rosie O’Grady’s pub and found a whole heap of 6 people standing around one table next to the bar. And no one else around. I sensed Jackie’s hesitation, but knew regardless of the lack of people, we should stay and introduce ourselves to the lovely couple and have some chat. We ordered our bevvies with the rather larger than life bartender and I walked over to the table. “Hiya! Since you are the only ones in here, we’re just going to shimmy on into your group, if you don’t mind?” Nay, bother! Celine and Danny, the couple from County Down in Northern Ireland, welcomed us in and took over the conversation. They’re the kind of couple that you can’t help but enjoy as they constantly shout at and take the piss out of each other, in a loving way you understand. Funny as, they were. The whole night was a bit strange and made us laugh. Cheesy music (Purple Rain), chat (“Why here? You turned left, didn’t you? You should never turn left, keep going north to Auckland.”), and jokes (Danny couldn’t get over the fact that I knew who Tommy Teirnan was, and practically shouted his approval to the pub). Celine introduced me to her Irish attitude and the female version of hurling, camogie, both of which made me realise you should never underestimate the power of a small woman with a hurling stick. Paul, their other Irish mate, was short, ginger, flushed, and friendly. Mike, from England, reminded me of a bald teddy bear and apparently walks 45 minutes to Rosie’s, which is his local pub, because according to him that’s how bad New Plymouth is in terms of nightlife. There was also a Kiwi guy at the table, who I never got the name of, who walked around in his oil stained blue work jumpsuit, but who also bought us free drinks. It was fun to watch them all get a bit slurry.

We went into the weekend without any plans, because as we’ve learned, most of what you do in NZ is weather dependent. Saturday greeted us a teensy bit cloudy. But we decided to venture out to Mt. Taranaki, as it would probably only get worse. First things first, though! Lucky me, Jackie is as much a coffee fiend as I am, and our priority was finding the hot cafe in town. One of my favorite moments of the trip happened when I went to ask the gal at reception if she knew where a good coffee shop was. Her eyes lit up and with rosy cheeks and a smile on her face she said, “I’ve been waiting for someone to ask me that since I started working here!” It was around this time that I had to face the realisation that I am officially addicted to the coffee here. Thus we had a date with Chaos. (The name of the cafe…)

The drive up through Egmont National Park to Mt. Taranaki frustrated us, as we couldn’t see the tip of the volcano. There was one stubborn cloud forlornly sticking to its post of cover. When we got out of the car we did our best to will that away. After a bit of huffing and puffing it worked and lo and behold! Snow capped Mt. Taranaki stood against blue skies. Singing ensued.

Farewell, Mt. Taranaki!

Since the day picked up rather than get worse, we drove down to Oakura, where the river meets the sea, along the Surf Highway and grabbed our second coffee (slap my wrist now), hit up the local surf shop, and had a stroll along the beach. Then we did a bit of the coastal walkway back in New Plymouth, sat on some rocks by the water, and talked. That night we hung out with our new mates, and had the laugh of our lives at how funny the whole place seemed to us. We both wondered what we ever did back in our small town lives. The first bar we went to had a live cover band that must have known we were there, as they played American Idiot by Green Day. We couldn’t get over the locals, a mix of young guys trying to play it cool and the older crowd, wearing biker gear, mullets, and bandanas, singing along to every song. Our next destination was a high class destination. A club that had a 70′s style dance floor, complete with light up tiles and people who didn’t know how to dance. My favorite was this guy decked out in his nerdiest, bow tie and all. I love New Plymouth.

Sunday we were up early, had our date with Chaos, and went for a stroll in Pukekura Park. It was a lovely wee park, complete with a Japanese influenced hill, ducks and ponds, a water wheel, and swings. The drive to Wanganui was sweet and reminded me of being back home (except for Mt. Taranaki on our left in the foreground, and the sea to our right), with cows and farms and hardly anyone around. Wanganui was a town I could see myself spending a little bit of time in. It’s right on a river by the sea, has one main road that has all sorts of quaint little shops, an old style cinema, cafes and pubs. Though, you’d be lucky to find more than a pub or restaurant open after 4pm! To celebrate the 4th, we did our best to find bits here and there to remind us of back home. We stood next to a bonfire on the black sand beaches, made veggie sausages with ketchup, chips, and potato salad, and then went and saw Toy Story 3 at the cinema. It was perfect. The cinema was classic. I think it only had three screens and very few seats. When we walked into ours, no one else was around, and “Dancing Queen” was playing. What else could I do? I dropped my things and started dancing down the aisles and up on the stage. I showed Jackie I learned how to roll on the ground in the contemporary dance classes I’d taken. And I managed to scare a couple of young girls walking by who were too frightened to come into the theatre until I stopped dancing. Good thing I’m not from there.

Making us feel at home.

Monday’s drive back was the bit that made this weekend near-perfect. We should have known it couldn’t all end up peachy keen. No more than twenty minutes outside of Wellington, I’d stopped at a roundabout to give way to traffic, when bam. We were rear-ended. Really? We laughed it off, because what else could we do? We pulled over and the driver of the car was this young guy, probably 17, who despite his cool, chilled out demeanour, was probably crying inside. I phoned the police, as it was a rental car and needed to be reported. Fortunately none of us were hurt and it was relatively minor damage. The police officer joked around heaps, thought Jackie and I were sisters, and said the kid was on the phone to daddy, and therefore was anything but cool about it. I now have to wait a good couple of months to get my excess back from the insurance company. Poor Oh, Susanna! and poor me!

Oh, Susanna! after the damage had been done.

In case you want to see more photos, check this out.  

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=181530&id=656643796&l=48952fc13c