New Zealand – Day 5 – Sunday, February 26th, 2017

Mostly sunny +26

We took the Skybus back to the airport and caught a shuttle to the rental office to pick up our rental car.  No big deal except that I now sit on the right side of the car and drive on the left, really weird if you asked me. All of the right-side driver’s in the world, of which I am sure are considerably more, should have protested and made these guys switch.  But it is what it is.

Our first stop was to The Warehouse to purchase a chilly bin and then to Countdown to pick up some groceries.

Our destination for today is Paihia.  It is north of Auckland about 240 kilometers on the east coast of the North Island.

All worked out as we made it to our destination with only one hiccup, a flat tire, which I might have driven on for a while too long as it had to be replaced.  Luckily, we were in a tiny town that had not only a nice beach but a tyre (in Canada this is spelled tire) store, oh and guess what, almost all towns have tyre stores. Apparently they have sharp rocks in New Zealand.

Our accommodation was a nice small motel with about the right amount of room for comfort plus a sitting area outside of the room.  The beach and main drive are just around the corner from the hotel.  This is the kind of place that we would like to find in Mexico near Puerto Vallarta.