Successful travels   Wednesday, 10/01/2024

I have been a little delayed in posting this… I got back from camping on Sunday evening and have since been trying to sort out a number of things – not least the necessary work on the boat.

What a successful trip it was. The North Island is beautiful – a land of beaches, rocky coastlines, forests and mountains. Camping proved more successful than I had hoped: in fact it was wonderful to be right in the natural environment all of the time. The small two-person tent didn’t leak – three times there was rain, actually not bad for an 11-day trip – and buying an air mattress was a good idea because it meant very comfortable sleeping regardless of the ground that I was camped on. 

New Zealand really excels at making nature accessible to all. Information online and on various notice boards is clear. Campsites are maintained – the grass is cut, even in very basic campsites where there are no facilities apart from a long drop toilet. The last two places I camped – in a forest south of Lake Taupo and in a national park inland from Napier on the east coast – were very basic and were free. Water was available from streams a few hundred meters away, and there was a composting toilet. The last site had hot springs, and there were two pools for free use – very hot water, the equivalent of a hot bath. These campsites were perfect for me: I would not have wanted to be in the holiday park type of places that dominate around the lake and at the seaside – serried ranks of caravans and camper vans, huge tents and hordes of screaming kids. Instead I was in places with just a few fellow campers – people who were there simply because they wanted to be away from it all. Another great advantage of camping in New Zealand is that it is one of the only snake-free countries in the world (unlike Australia, which is notorious for its poisonous snakes, as well as spiders).

In the last few days, I was in thermal water every day. Around Lake Taupo there were thermal springs, including one running into a wide and fast-moving river, which gave the opportunity of getting warm and then moving out into the cold river water… very refreshing! And it was a lot more comfortable than merely washing in a cold mountain stream. It was cold at night and in the mornings south of Lake Taupo – the campsite was well up in the forest, 720 metres above sea level, compared to 370 metres down at the lakeshore. At night, the temperature fell to about 7 degrees, and at 8 o’clock in the morning was still only 10 degrees. I slept in jeans and a light sailing jacket and felt perfectly warm.

So it was an interesting and enjoyable trip, made even more so by the car I hired. I was impressed by the Toyota RAV4. Not only was it comfortable and drove very smoothly, but its four wheel drive option made a difference travelling on dirt. The last campsite was 18 kilometres (11 miles) along a dirt road that was rough and steep in some places. The car also had a wireless charging plate in front of its automatic gear lever, great for charging my phone. When I first got into it and turned on the ignition it immediately recognised that I had an Apple phone and a message came up on the screen saying “Do you want to use Apple CarPlay?” Which worked very well, especially for navigation – just using Google Maps on my phone, the map came up on the car’s large touchscreen. The benefits of up-to-the-minute technology; the car was only two months’ old.

I am now identifying various boat technicians to do a variety of jobs – new autopilot, new fridge, new sails, new stainless steel solar arch, a rigging check, engine and water pump servicing etc. I’ve consulted Tom, who has had a few things done here, but also the marina manager Gareth, who is an ocean racing sailor. It does feel strange to be back and in one place after travelling a long way and staying in different places… I drove 3,000 kilometres (1,875 miles) travelling around, largely the result of going to the far north as well as quite far south – New Zealand, like the U.K., is long and thin.