Lean to the left
(12:25 p.m. Taupo, New Zealand, Sunday, Dec. 10)
Driving on the left-hand side of the road is more fun than one might think. We’ve gone through Wellington and about one half of the north island of New Zealand since our arrival. Now, we’re in Taupo, a good-sized town in the center of the thermoactive region of the island. We stopped at a McDonald’s in hopes of finding wi-fi access so I could update you all through this blog, we could check our financial statuses, and keep in touch with the “outside world,†but they haven’t rolled out that service to this part of the world yet, apparently.
(Secretly, it’s OK, though, because I also was excited to eat a cheeseburger.)
Last night we spent night one of three in the rental car – which, for those paying attention, is a brand-new Toyota Yaris hatchback. Great for driving around, and great for hauling our luggage – not so great if you want to haul luggage AND recline your seat to sleep. It was probably in the single digits below zero Celsius last night, so we had to turn on the car a couple of times to heat it up in the middle of the night. We also realized that since we were staying in the mid-level altitude regions – not by requirement, but because “the view was pretty,†we probably caused ourselves more undue stress than was actually necessary. Oh well.
Today we’re taking a leisurely drive up to our next destination, stopping along the way for random photo breaks. The car is loaded with food – mostly peanut butter and bread – to satisfy our travel urges. New Zealand, however, is considerably cheaper than Australia, so I haven’t spent even a fraction of what I spent in Australia.
Gas is like $1.30 a liter, and to fill up the Yaris is about NZD $50. For a Yaris. Yup. The first time I filled up my Aveo, down in Chicago when gas prices were high, cost USD $30. Ever since, it’s only in the $23-$25 range. In American money, NZD $50 is only about $35-$38, but it’s still a bit of sticker shock.
Overall, I think I like New Zealand more than Australia. There’s a certain mystical nature about it, similar to the Celtic heritage of the British Islands. Everything is so green, and the country is a bit cleaner. (The air quality, for example, is amazingly crisp, clean, and refreshing.) The people are just as friendly as in Australia (and they don’t automatically hate us for being American!) and the addition of Maori cultural activities is a crowning touch.
Bryan’s going to kill me if we keep sitting at the McDonald’s much longer, since there is no Internet here, so we better be off in search of a connection.
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Daniel Ross-Jones serves as Minister for Youth & Young Adults at First Congregational Church of Palo Alto, United Church of Christ. Living in the San Francisco Bay Area for a time still measured in months, he is frequently getting lost and discovering treasures of a landscape very different from his Upper Midwestern roots. Green Jello Hotdish is a blog exploring the intersections of his days. 
