Keeping In Touch: On the road... again...

On Thursday morning, around 11am, my package from America arrived. It had themissing paperwork that I needed and I was elated. I quickly packed up my things, said goodbye to my Uncle and headed down to the American Embassy. When I found a parking spot, I feed the parking meter so I could be there for an hour, just incase I had to wait to get to the front of the line. However, when I got up to the Embassy, I was the only person there. I handed my paperwork over, and asked when I could expect to get my passport back. They told me that I should have it by Monday at the lastest, but possibly even the next day. I was feeling a little lighthearted, so walked around Auckland city for the hour. It was nice to be out and about, visiting some shops and tourist spots.

After that, I headed out of Auckland. I decided to take a different route home from my drive up, so headed in the direction of Tauranga. When I realised how close I would be to Paeroa, I just had to stop and see if the huge L&P bottle was there. L&P is a soda that is world famous in New Zealand. It all started in Paeroa which is what the "P" stands for. The "L" just stands for lemon.

I came across the Victoria Battery Mine ruins in the Karangahake gorge. I had fun playing in the arches of the battery taking self portraits with my camera, but I wished I had Beckie there to take the pictures. No doubt hers would have turned out much better than the ones I got.

I made it through to Tauranga and Mt Maunganui just as the sun was starting to set. I wished I had stayed to see it set all the way, because the clouds turned a brilliant gold colour then a vivid pink and purple. But I wanted to push through and get to Te Puke before I lost all the light of day. In the last picture of the giant kiwifruit, you can see the last remnants of the colourful sunset.

For most of the day, I had glorious weather for sightseeing and driving. By the time I got to the last set of mountains between Taupo and Hastings, I had started to drizzle, but by then it was dark and I couldn't see anything anyway.

I have to say that I have been surprised with just how small New Zealand is. But there is so much to see. I have only shown snippets of the things that I could get to by car. There are so many other places that you can explore if you get out and walk. But I didnt have the time. However, I thoroughly enjoyed just driving through the countryside and seeing my beloved country where I have so many memories.

My Trip South