Day 408, Year 1: A Rainy Day in Whangarei (fon-gar-ay)
Date: Thursday, November 30, 2006
Weather: Rainy, Turning Cooler
Location: Whangarei, New Zealand
What do cruisers do on a rainy day in Whangarei? For one thing, we clean out those well hidden storage spaces that we haven’t gotten into for awhile. We found a minimal amount of mildew for which we were grateful. And now Mark is working on little indoor projects while I am writing the log and organizing pictures for the website. We had a rental car until noon today, so we started the day by touring the town. We drove to one end of town to see the New World supermarket that is supposed to be the best, and then we drove to the other end to visit the Tourist Information Center. I had gotten a lot of information pamphlets in Pahia, but I have been reading and now know more about the specific places we plan to visit when we do our land touring here. This center had volumes of free information for us. They were also very helpful in terms of informing us about various ways to travel around the country. They gave us the locations of the local places that rent and sell cars and camper vans, so we also visited those. We went to The Warehouse which is like a huge Walmart and realized just why we decided to go cruising. It took what seemed like forever to find a parking place, and then when we walked through the pouring rain to get inside we were greeted by Warehouse “greeters”, just like Walmart, and crowds of people inside. I don’t think I’ll be going back there!
At the information center, I bought a travel book entitled, “The Lord of the Rings Location Guide Book”. It takes you through scenes from the three films and gives you information on visiting the various film locations. It even gives GPS coordinates, so I guess even cruisers will be able to find these spots. I bought the “Lord of the Rings” DVD’s before leaving home, so if this rain persists, we might just kick back and watch a movie as we study the travel guide. That sounds like a great way to spend a rainy evening or three in Whangarei.
