El Jeep-o for the Peep-le

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date"

Long lost love.

On November 20th, 2011 my darling Jeep was packed up into a container in Atlanta and, alone, made the long journey to New Zealand. The journey was not without peril. As any lad with google knows, New Zealand is most unkind to importation of older vehicles. They have strict vehicle standards which must be met to allow one to drive on their roads. To give you an idea of what it took to get fair-Jeepo over here allow me to outline:

1. Cost to transport in container
2. Concession fees in L.A. and Auckland ports to remove Jeep from container and "inspect"
3. MAF (Ministry for Biosecurity protection) fees to fumigate Jeep to eliminate any critters
4. Jeep inspected at importers location and deemed rusty = charge to sandblast and paint underside of jeep
5. Jeep still rusty, one month of Panel Beater work to cut out rust, replace steal, and have an "Engineer" certify that it was done properly....this took 1.5 months....
6. Significant monies to repoint headlamps, new driver-side seatbelt, new front brakes, grind rotors, patch small chip in windscreen, etc.
7. Compliance fees. You MUST receive a compliance certificate before you may register your vehicle to drive on their roads. After compliance for general import health, a WOF (Warrant of Fitness) must be obtained. You must get a new WOF every 6 months to drive. Luckily you must comply only once. 
8. Rego fees which gets us, finally, the tags....

My precious Jeep entered the container Nov 20, 2011, allowed to drive in NZ April 20, 2012.

Absence does make the heart grow fonder...

Jeep was, of course, taken straight to Muriwai Beach

Never again....never.

All that trouble to allow to drive on the roads.....nah..

Li'l Ella missed it too.

Bottom line is DO NOT try to bring any car to this country. They have plenty of suitable off-road vehicles for you to choose from with air conditioning, navigation, and heated seats. Try to figure out how to get the doors off of your CR-V!

Unfortunately Jeep did not get to enjoy a brights Summer's day... this year....

West Coast is the Best Coast

The weekend before Lee's birthday we went a bit further past Huia. You drive through Huia-proper, cross a stream which runs off of the Waitakeres and across the road (need Jeep).  After the stream the road turns into gravel all the way out to the Whatipu scientific reserve (NEED JEEP!). It's a somewhat treacherous ride that takes about 20 minutes on the gravel.....but once you get there the reserve is not to be missed. The beach is a neat little "Crescent". Take a left and have a look at the fishing dudes tossing line into the Manukau Harbour side of the pass which goes to the Tasman Sea. You can climb up a hill and get a brilliant view of the Tasman and Manukau all at once....Ella and Lee took a breather here...

Like with all the west coast beaches, we are always amazed at how private the beaches are - it really feels like you are on the other side of the world.

left end of crescent beach

and the right side..

view of entire crescent beach from the hill

....turn around and BAM, there is manukau harbour...

...as promised...fishing dudes...

some sort of science-fiction happening out in the reserve

li'l ella needed a break

panorama of the whatipu crescent beach

The day after Whatipu we went to check out Karekare. A lot of the westies we met have family out here. It's a very small community that sounds the alarm when the surf is up. We were told that you can tell when the surf is good from all the trousers in front yards! The boys drop them off and head to the beach in the middle of whatever they are doing leaving the women drinking NZ wine on the patios!

The beach is again impressive with high cliffs and an interesting walk through some muck and streams to get out there.  The stream is more like a river as you get back to the parking lot and you nearly have to swim across it after a nice rain.

A pleasant surprise was a waterfall just 10 mins from the parking lot. Stunning.

waterfall near karekare

karekare beach