a few random thoughts

- It's good to have friends who have houses and spare bedrooms.
About half the nights we spent on the road this past month, we spent staying with people we'd met. Most of the time, these were people we met in Wellington. A few friends had moved to other locales. One of our Wellington friends has relatives who own a house in Russell. He flew up to meet us, and we stayed in campers on the beach, behind his great-aunt's house.
This relationship helped us out twice. When we got to Russell and met the great-aunt, she offered us use of her house in Auckland, which was sitting empty. It was in a terrific location, and we had free accommodation to check out the city.

- Talking with people you don't know who have spare beds can also turn out well. Our most random night came just before Easter. We'd spent the day around Mount Taranaki, and were driving past a small brewery at the end of the day. We stopped, sampled some beer, bought some beer, and started talking with the owner. He ended up offering us a spot for the night in a small cabin on the grounds. A night in the tent avoided.

- Having a car large enough to fit a mattress is invaluable if your alternative is a tent and you stop in a downpour of rain.

- People in New Zealand seem to expect tourists to pull over where they can and sleep in their car (or van or whatever). People in New Zealand have a high tolerance for cheap tourists.

- However, cooking on a camp stove in the middle of the day in a city park still earns you some odd looks.

- Every now and again you need a day when you're not trying to see anything in particular or do anything more than just hang out.

- The first week we were in New Zealand, we took a bus trip from Auckland to the Bay of Islands. At the time, we were amazed by the narrow, winding road.
Seven months later, we drove from Auckland to the Bay of Islands. This time, we were amazed by how wide and relatively straight the road is.

- To give you an idea of New Zealand roads, State Highway 1, the main North-South artery of the country, is unpaved for about 20 miles at its North end.

- I still haven't figured out how, when we're traveling, we meet lots of similar tourists out in the cities. When we were living in Wellington, we ran into almost no tourists out at night.

- Seeing beaches never gets old.