In the morning we headed to Whangarei falls.\u00a0 Although it was relatively pretty I was slightly at a loss as to why every guidebook I had read had raved about and recommended the place.\u00a0 Needless to say we didn\u00b4t hang around for too long, instead opting for a McDonalds\u00b4 on the way to Auckland.\u00a0 When we arrived in Auckalnd I wasn\u00b4t overly enamoured with the place…..can you see a theme developing here?\u00a0 Seriously though the place just felt, well, a little soulless to be honest.\u00a0 Lance agreed so it wasn\u00b4t just my hangover making me hate the World!\u00a0 So we carried on South and went through several equally non-exciting places such as Athenree, Waihi Beach and Waihi.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
We arrived in Mount Maunganui at around nine at night.\u00a0 I went up to a backpackers\u00b4 place and was greeted by perhaps the rudest woman in the World.\u00a0 She had a mouthful of food and, despite my question, she replied with, “we close at eight thirty”.\u00a0 Even a complete stranger passing by remarked how helpful she was.\u00a0 So, unperturbed we headed to another backpackers\u00b4, this time in Tauranga which we were informed was full.\u00a0 Eventually, having driven round for some time, we found a motel in town.\u00a0 When we rang the doorbell we were greeted by a Kiwi who wanted to be an English eccentric more than any English person I\u00b4ve ever met.\u00a0 She was kind of cool actually and had the flat cap, fur around her neck and the classic car to match.\u00a0 She seemed to think Lance was up to no good which made me laugh and surreptitiously sneaked him two bottles (one of Sangria and one of beer) which apparently were for, “later”!\u00a0 After we had sorted our things out a car with a young couple pulled up and she turned them away.\u00a0 I couldn\u00b4t help wondering why as we hardly looked like classy clientelle and there were two units free when we arrived.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the morning we headed to Whangarei falls.\u00a0 Although it was relatively pretty I was slightly at a loss as to why every guidebook I had read had raved about and recommended the place.\u00a0 Needless to say we didn\u00b4t hang around for too long, instead opting for a McDonalds\u00b4 on the way to Auckland.\u00a0 When […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}