Notes from Highway 1 South

We left  at 11:30 today: Wednesday November 17th.  Down Highway 5 to meet Highway 1.  South.  South.  Out of the Sulfuric city:  Rotorua Goodbyes!

Down the Road to Huka Falls.  A torrent of aquamarine water rumbling down rock-carved alleyways.  Ice water rushing insatiable to the falls... and over the falls, the vloume enough to fill five olympic sized swimming pools every minute.

Through the town of Taupo to the lake below bearing the same name.  We roll around the eastern rim, the car a microwave oven and we are melting into the upholstery.  Pull off the highway and slip into swim trunks.  Black sand and gravel.  Bite your lip as you tip-toe into Lake Taupo.  Crystal clear and shining, dive into the cold. 

Round rocks cover the bottom as if the lake was the wet-nest of some behemoth long forgotten.  And we, the shirtless snatchers, are slip-sliding among the fossilized prehistoric eggs.  A few  minutes in the frigid water and we exit shivering, shaking the water from our heads like dogs after a bath.  Back past the black sand, the gravel beach, and into the Toyota Corolla.  Hatchback to freedom.

Ruapehu--the mountain of the north looming behind the lake--snow covered and catching the sun it its icy net.  In front, like guardians cloaked in white bed sheets are Tongarero and Ngauruhoe, two peaks connected by the Tongarero crossing: the most sought after footpath in all of New Zealand.  Babes in short britches and boots and seamen stains the mountain tops.

Road work.  Road work.  Through the mountains.  Road work on Highway 1 South.  And in between stoppages it is a slick rock river, a million pebbles clink-pinking into the wheel wells, flooding the roadway, making metal music on the floor boards.  Stop-and-go into the sparse hills.  Down the Desert Road, and we are desperados, stopping at a shady grove fro tuna sandwiches.

Back onto the road and past the work crews--the crews no different from those in the U.S., content to stand stationary with cigarettes slanting from their chapped lips, no tools in sight, just vacant stares and a series of nods.    Away.  Away.

And into the green again.  How aesthetically pleasing: rolling hills blanketed in green and spotted with either sheep or cattle.  A story book unfolding on both sides of the highway.  We are riding along the inside of the spine, the open pages spreading, ever spreading into the horizon. 

A quick stop for ice cream where neither of us can pay because of credit card complications, and the globes of ice cream sitting in their cone-podiums drip in vibrant colors onto the glass counter top.

A coat of wool covers the sky as we take off, and this is truly the land of the long white cloud.  The mountains rise lush and dark with native bush to our left, and to our right signs point to the sea coast.  An alabaster statue of a cloaked woman stares down from a ridge.

Nate:  Is that Mother Mary up there?
Chester: Yeah.  She's watching over the town.
Nate: Really?  What town is this?
Chester: Don't know.  Some shit hole."

We round a bend and the land falls away to the Pacific Ocean: a choppy plane pulsing.  Into the weathered coastline, the sunlight an island bursting bright our there: in the great saltiness.  And on to Wellington we go, where we will "sink piss" until we can't see straight and sleep for three hours in the car before hopping on the Blue Bridge Ferry at seven o'clock in the morning. 

South Bound.