Once we left Auckland, it was 2-lane roads all the way. The van has all the usual amenities except cruise control. There were some stretches where it would have been nice to set it and forget it, but mostly I had to pay close attention.

On the way into Palmy North, the out of date maps on our GPS had us going over the Manawatu Gorge road, but it was closed a couple of years ago due to repeated land slips. There’s a detour up a twisty mountain road that takes you right up into the Te Apiti wind farm. It had been windy all day, and the spinning turbines were quite beautiful in their way. People hate them, and talk about spoiled views and subsonic disruption and so on. But to me, they are gorgeous feats of engineering and seem so much more benign than the amount of destruction associated with coal mines and oil refineries (although a refinery on a foggy night can also be quite pretty).

Our next non-stop was to see the glockenspiel clock in Stratford. We weren’t at the right time for its twice-daily performance, sadly. Lonely Planet seemed a bit snarky about this particular Roadside Attraction.

And finally, the giant sheep shearing sculpture at Te Kuiti. Other than “awesome,” there’s really not much to be said about that.

An overnight stop doesn’t really allow much exploring… but we were ready to see as much of Napier as we could with our Lonely Planet guide and some pre-show googling (do you capitalize the verb form???).

First stop, the Pania of the Reef statue. Lonely Planet told us the Maōri story (like a lot of the Maōri stories we’ve heard, this one involved star-crossed lovers, angry parents, and being turned into islands forever separate) and described the statue as having “dubious boobs.” After close examination I can see the argument… they did look sort of pasted on, perhaps an ice cream scoop had been used in the sculpting process.

The ice cream shop at the skatepark is called Lick This, which we thought was all kinds of awesome. Did the local Council actually approve that name?

Maybe the biggest attraction in Napier is NANZ, the National Aquarium of New Zealand. It was pretty cool… better pictures than I ever get while diving! We got there soon after they opened, and it was a good thing… by the time we left it was packed!

The Little Penguins were super cute, but the attendant had seen it all before and was glued to her phone.

For the big ocean tank you can ride on a moving sidewalk in an acrylic tunnel under the water.

We still had a couple hours, so we went into town to stroll and eat lunch. I executed the best parallel parking job EVER!

And then we stumbled across Trainworld. Lee has a longtime fondness for scale models, and train layouts are one of the best ways to indulge that interest. It’s not really about the trains… it’s the landscaping and buildings and painting she enjoys.

Like many private museums/ attractions, this one seems to run on a shoestring budget, and has seen better days. Still… some really great train layouts and worth the $10 for us.

After that, we stopped into a couple of vintage (aka thrift) shops, and scored a couple of nice prints:

Pukekos by Rob McGregor, and

Spirit of the Plains by Sydney Long.

By the time it was all said and done we left a little later than we intended, but it was a fun half day in Napier.

We loaded the minivan and took off this week for a 3-day tiki tour* of some North Island sites we hadn’t seen.

First stop, Lake Taupo. Famous for various athletic pursuits, gorgeous scenery, etc. We tried to have lunch in a café but the high prices and lack of service convinced us to eat the ham sandwiches we’d packed in the chilly bin.

We walked around the village for a while. It boasts the “World’s Coolest McDonalds.” You can go inside the plane.

New Zealand is a land of roadside attractions… not much here is at Disney scale. We found ourselves mesmerized watching people smack golf balls into the water. If you get a hole in one you win a prize, which apparently happens every couple of weeks. This guy didn’t win, but he had a nice stroke and hit the platform about three times out of four.

* Don’t know exactly what a tiki tour is, but Kiwis say it a lot. I think it just means a trip that rambles around and makes a lot of stops… possibly too many.

We stopped off for lunch in Whangarei on the way back to Auckland Monday. You could feel the hustle and bustle of last minute shopping and final preparations.

Other than lunch, our main goal was to visit the Clapham’s Clock Museum, a roadside attraction if ever there was one. It was fun! All the running clocks are purposely set to different times so you get a constant dose of chimes and cuckoos. In the picture above, I’m posing near an Ingraham banjo clock very similar to one that sits in a box in Brattleboro waiting for me to finish the steampunk restoration project I imagined a couple years ago.

We also stopped in at the very impressive hospice thrift shop and admired some art. We came away with a set of ramekins that are the perfect size for baked eggs. Which we had for breakfast a couple days later. Score!

Two ways to spend a day on the Bay of Islands… we chose the one with air conditioning and a nice snack bar.

It was a lot of fun… a little history, a lot of views, an obliging pod of dolphins, a fun adventure being dragged through the water on a boom net…

It’s a lot harder than it looks to get one of those cutesy shots… especially when the shutterbug you’ve recruited doesn’t quite get the concept. So just imagine this next one from a slightly different angle…

All in all a great day!

The Provs take over Bag End. And the inevitable gift shop.

“Placid coastline from a boat” (or “boats bobbing in still harbor”) must be the title of most of the world’s least interesting photos. But in this case, the picture doesn’t replace the 1,000 words. The last time I took this trip, just over a year ago, I was jetlagged. The seas were rough beneath the wind and rain. There was a tight timetable. Exciting day, but sort of weird and disconnected.

So this time, the very placidness was a delicious change. The water was all shades of blue and green, the clouds obligingly fluffy. The boat, a different one than last year, was unexpectedly nice.

We planned to spend about six hours in Picton, and honestly knew that might be too much, but the ferry schedule offered too little or too much, so there you are.

First stop, the Edwin Fox museum. Despite the overlong video about the ship’s history and associated preservation (not restoration!) efforts, that was a 45-minute visit. Interesting and all, but hard to get truly immersed without the company of an expert boatbuilder. Or maybe a group of school kids.

Then across the lovely foreshore park into town for lunch.

Then shopping up and down both blocks of Picton’s CBD. I did get a paperback John Carter of Mars, notable in that the British cover art actually shows the Princess’s lovely breasts, whereas the US editions from that time period always cover her up with ornate bikinis. The other most interesting thing about the shopping district was the community noticeboard outside the grocery store. I’ve never seen so many clubs advertised in one place: bridge, cribbage, lawn bowling, watercolor, poetry, book and cinema lovers, and even a community accordion ensemble. It’s as if every retiree must start a hobby club as a condition of residence.

We had a beer to recover from all the excitement and planned our next move. The aquarium, obviously.

We’ve been to some world class aquatic exhibits… Chicago, Monaco, Monterey… If I were on the Picton Chamber of Commerce I would be excitedly pitching the extraordinary amount of as-yet-unrealized aquarium-attraction opportunity in front of this plucky seaside community… there’s literally nowhere to go but up! Nowhere.

Next we wandered over to the pleasure port and had the same conversation we always have in that situation.

A) look at all the yachts for sale. Some of them we could even afford if we really wanted to.

B) but what a lot of work and expense even after you pay for it. Let’s rent or charter one sometime instead.

C) agreed. But if we did buy one, which ones do we like? That one, that one, not that one, ooh, look!

D) who owns all these boats anyway? It’s such a shame they all just seem to sit here, seldom if ever used.

Then it was back to the foreshore for some rock-skipping and birdwatching, and back on the boat. We booked into the Premium Lounge on the way back, so dinner and an open bar, well worth it. We got into a brief discussion with some drunken fellow passengers, including a couple Kiwis who were loudly defending their opinion that Canadians are way better than Americans. Not really an argument we want to have, but we did end up agreeing that Vermont is basically Canada, so it’s all good.

Farewell, Picton, until we meet again. You seem like a great jumping off point for South Island adventures, probably a nice place to retire or live in the marina on a boat with a scruffy little dog and a bottle of Jim Beam. We wish you a nice quiet summer, but we hope all the tourists visit your attractions.