Northland Roadtrip Day 1

Day one of our roadtrip north we traveled almost 200km up highway 1 by the graciousness of seven different drivers including two men from South Africa, a Maori man, a dad with his four-year-old son, and finally Kathy, a Kiwi woman who fancied trucks.

While driving Kathy would spot an 18-wheeler and shout, “There you are you cheeeky motherf******. You sexy thing. Ha!” Occasionally she would snap photos of the trucks with her digital camera as the trucks passed by.

I sat up front an held my end of the conversation as much as possible, but I know nothing about trucks, I don't have any children, ex-husbands or addictions, and I've never found truckers particularly sexy, so she talked and I nodded and smiled.

At first she said she was a freelance truck photographer, but then she admitted that she was unemployed, and didn't usually earn money from her pictures. I think it was more of an extreme hobby than a source of income.

She insisted that we stay at her house, but we were skeptical. We agreed to stop by and were greeted by a large German Shepherd who was missing his back hair and smelled like cat urine. Pete, and old man with wild white hair, was watching a Kiwi soap opera and Kim, a trucker Kathy met on a dating site, was on the computer. The house was littered with toys, trash and clothes and the walls were plastered with truck photos. It smelled of rotten food, dirty dishes, and dog urine. The furniture felt sticky, so we three opted to stand, complaining of cramped legs from the car rides.

We decided we couldn't stay...and told Kathy friends were expecting us in town by 9 p.m.

That night we camped in a public park, which was recommended by the police station, and slept soundly until the sky started spitting rain at 3 a.m. By 8 a.m. We were cold, wet and hungry and found our way to the public library. The library was the Mecca of wet, stranded travlers that morning and we met Sandra and Daniel.

After chatting for 10 minutes we all decided to rent a car together and head north, just as the sun began to shine.