I need to tell you about a coincidence that has occurred.  This coincidence out-coincedences all other coincidences I’ve ever experienced.

When I dropped my car off before the sailing journey, I left it with the parents of Rebecca Borgen, the wife of the chicken farmer I worked for in Northland.  Rebecca’s parents just happen to be next door neighbors with the only other contact I have in New Zealand…cousins of my close friend Steve.  Think about this for a second.

I know that New Zealand is a relatively small country, but the fact that the only two people I know in this country of 4+ million people happen to live literally right next door to each other in a north Auckland suburb just blows my mind.  Sometimes this is a very small world.

Anyhow, after picking up my car from Rebecca’s parents, I made the arduous journey to the house next door to introduce myself to the Gatlands.  Tracey Gatland is an American (the daughter of my next-door neighbor’s brother) and when she was about my age she did the same cross-Pacific backpacking journey through NZ that I’m doing now.  While traveling, she met Chris and they eventually got married.

Now the Gatlands live in North Shore City, just across the bay from downtown Auckland, and they have four kids ranging in age from twelve to eighteen.  When they found out I was in the country, they were more than willing to meet me and provide some hospitality.  After a week on a boat, I was ready for a hot shower and the ability to stretch my legs out in bed, so I gladly accepted their offer for dinner and a place to sleep for the night.

They were amazing hosts.  Tracey picked me up from the ferry, showed me the way to the shower and invited me to join her family for dinner.  They were incredibly friendly and curious about my travels, and we enjoyed a hearty meal of meat and potatoes and then some wine and conversation that lasted well into the night.  I had a wonderful time.

The next morning, all of the Gatlands were awake and out of the house by 8:30 and I prepared some breakfast and let myself out an hour or so later.  I was planning on helping Peter and Antonia run some errands for the boat, but they had to take Silas to a doctor’s appointment, so I packed up my stuff and started heading south.

My tentative plan is this: to drive to the northern part of the South Island, the seasonal work capital of NZ, in the hopes of finding a temporary (3 weeks or so) stint doing manual labor to inject some cash into my dwindling bank account.  Having been unemployed for two months now, I’ve watched my meager savings slowly chisel away, and while I was on the sailboat, I came to the conclusion that I need to make a bit of money if I want to last for a whole year.

Anyhow, the result is that I have to rush through the southern part of the North Island, skipping a bunch of areas that I would love to visit in order to get a few solid weeks of work in before I head to Fiordland National Park in early December to hike the Milford Track.

Once on the motorway going south out of Auckland, I passed through the Waikato, a large area of rolling green pastures rich in agriculture, through the sizable city of Hamilton, and along the shores of Lake Taupo, the largest lake in NZ and the center of the country’s primary geothermal area, as well as an internationally renowned center for trout fishing.

Taupo is similar to Lake Tahoe in the US (I think, I’ve never actually been to Tahoe), it is a large picturesque lake with snow-capped volcanoes on the eastern shore.  It was incredibly scenic and I would have loved the opportunity to explore the area, but I pressed on through without stopping.  I set up camp at an isolated DOC campground in the Kaimanara Forest Park just past the shores of the lake.  I was the only one at the campground, and the solitude was both refreshing and a little bit frightening.  As I lay in the tent in the dark, reading by flashlight, I kept hearing the rustling and cracking of large creatures in the surrounding trees and when I went to investigate, saw at least two pairs of reflecting eyes in the dark…opossums, I assume.  I decided to ignore the noises, zipped up my tent, and fell asleep.

In the morning, I hit the road going south and quickly passed into the boundaries of Tongariro National Park.  This area is one of the most scenic in all of New Zealand, with three volcanoes (one of which was Mt. Doom in The Lord of the Rings).  The part of the park that I passed through was a small desert and the land was used for military testing.  I passed a tank on the highway and was hoping to see some explosions or paratroopers or something, but saw nothing of the sort.  However, I was treated to extraordinary views of the three snow-capped volcanoes, again tempting me to come explore them…the Tongariro crossing is a very popular day hike across one of the volcanoes….but I had an agenda to stick to, so I continued driving.

After Tongariro, the landscape shifted back to green pastures, although those south of the volcanoes were steeper and higher than those of Northland.  And in the distance were mountains.  Not huge peaks, but a long chain comparable to the Appalachians of southern Virginia and North Carolina.  As I neared Wellington at the very south of the North Island, the mountains pushed the highway all the way to the west coast, and I had a quick glimpse at an angry Tasman Sea before crossing a pass in the mountains and descending on Wellington.

I arrived in the city around 2:30pm and immediately went to the terminal for the Interisland Ferry.  I was told that crossings had to be booked in advance and that they are quite pricey.  I was also told that I wouldn’t be able to cross until the next day at the earliest.

I made some phone calls and secured the necessary bookings and decided to spend the next day exploring New Zealand’s capital and second-largest city.  I only had a limited time, but I loved Wellington.  It has a the air of most seats of government I’ve been in, and I would describe the parts I saw as a combination of Ottawa and Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, with maybe a pinch of Portland, OR to include the vast and green city parks.

I spent a few hours in Te Papa, The Museum of New Zealand, a modern and engaging museum with exhibits ranging from the country’s geologic past to native ecology to Maori beliefs.  I could have spent all day in the museum, and I hope I have to chance to come back and explore more.  Like DC’s Smithsonian, admission was free - another huge plus.

After the museum, I made a booking at a small, quiet hostel a short distance from downtown and headed out to find a bite to eat.  I was hoping to find someone at the hostel to go out with, but there were few people there and those who I saw were making their own meals in the kitchen, so I headed out alone.

I wandered around for awhile, passing a number Chinese and Japanese takeaways, Kebab stands, Italian restaurants, and fast food chains before deciding that A) there are a lot of international choices to places to eat in Wellington, B) there are more restaurants than there are patrons, as many were completely empty, and C) I need a beer.

I remembered seeing a place on the harbor near the Te Papa museum called The Brewery and went to investigate.  Turns out it is the home of Mac’s Brewery, one of the largest microbreweries in the country and the maker of one of the few NZ beers I’ve really liked since coming here (Mac’s Black).  When I walked inside, I saw no bar to sit at and start up a conversation, it was more of a restaurant, and it was a bit pricey, but I was hungry and they served good beer, so I conceded that this would be a solitary dinner and took a seat.

I ate alone, gazing out across the low gray clouds that hung over the harbor while watching some skateboarders battle the fierce winds in a courtyard outside.  After my meal, I decided to take a long walk back to the hostel and explored more of the downtown area, strolling along a pedestrianized street lined with shops and cafés.

Back at the hostel, I looked into job possibilities and hostels to stay at the next night and had a brief conversation with a Swedish woman about the Tongariro crossing before being tortured through an awkward, hour-long conversation with a man who, after refusing to shake my hand (“on principle…nothing personal”) tucked his arms into his sleeves and talked to me about such varying topics as “Who Owns the Moon”, “There are Probably Fossils on the Moon”, “Who ARE Americans” (I tried to explain cultural assimilation, but I think he failed to grasp it), “What is Obama’s Religion”, “Obama is an African”, and “All Israelis are Arabs”.  Talking to this man was frustrating, (e.g., when I asked where he was from he said “I don’t know”) but eventually I was able to pry myself away to write this passage.  He did bring up a good point though…it is always interesting to talk to people from other cultures, and although I don’t know where he was from (he was an archetypical Aryan, so I assumed he was German, but he mentioned that he grew up in Africa and his accent hinted at a Russian influence), he provided interesting conversation at the very least…

Tomorrow, I will leave the hostel in the morning, spend a few more hours exploring Wellington, and then catch the ferry to Picton, leaving to North Island for the next few months…