There’s something magical about discovering new places on a road trip.
Have you ever just packed a car and gone where the wind takes you? If you haven’t, I recommend giving it a try – no itinerary, just a rough idea of the places you’d like to see.
Someof the best holidays I’ve had have been unplanned and unstructured.
Like the time we travelled the Forgotten Highway and found a lavender farm and café with the most delicious baked goods. Drive further along the road and there are places where you feel alone in the world, stranded between Ruapehu and Taranaki maunga.
Then there was the time we ended up at the Cape Palliser lighthouse, driving along a dusty road filled with beautiful views and hundreds of fur seals.
Or the time we visited Tāne Mahuta and found a gorgeous little shop in someone’s yard selling hand-carved items of kauri and kauri gum.
I’ve got a small suitcase filled with mementoes from trips like these – weird little souvenirs that won’t mean anything to anyone else but us: Tickets from a trip to Stonehenge Aotearoa near Carterton. Shells collected from near Raukokore Church almost as far east in the Bay of Plenty as you can get. The passport and T-shirt for the Republic of Whangamōmona.
On one of our most recent road trips, we went up to Northland to visit friends.
It was the first long-ish trip we’d done with our little guy so we went into it far more prepared than usual – rest stops mapped out, complete with playgrounds perfect for the stretching of little legs (and hopeful inducement for napping), all available nooks and crannies of the car filled with snacks of the crumbless variety, favourite songs saved to a playlist in case of a meltdown.
It went surprisingly well. One possible reason for the ease of travel could have been the lovely new (and new-ish) roads we got to travel upon.
The Cambridge bypass certainly makes travelling to Hamilton much smoother – no more waiting ages at that roundabout in the middle of the town. We stopped in at the amazing destination playground at Lake Rotoroa then got back in the car and hit the rest of the new Waikato Expressway.
The Waikato Expressway. Photo / NZTA
Goodness, traffic travels rather quickly along that road. There were lines of cars that must have been cruising at around 130km/h. We felt positively snail-like sticking to the speed limit – I was almost expecting fist-shaking as cars overtook us.
Then there was Auckland’s Northern Gateway, complete with tunnel; a novelty that this lifelong Bay dweller always enjoys.
The last portion of our trip had the roughest roads – they were the standard potholed chip seal familiar to most users of the country’s state highway network but felt all the more… undeveloped after the luxurious modern highways we’d spent the last few hours driving on.
Unluckily for us, though, we’d used two of the country’s three toll roads so on our return trip, we’d racked up almost $9 in tolls.
Strangely enough, though, the tolls were for two of the smallest portions of the trip – Takitimu Drive in Tauranga, once known locally as Route K, and the Northern Gateway. Notice the 101km-long, almost entirely four-lane Waikato Expressway did not feature on that short list?
I suppose I should be thankful I didn’t hit the trifecta and drive the TEL - Tauranga Eastern Link - as well.
What’s crazy, though, is that Takitimu Drive isn’t even that nice to drive on, in my opinion. It’s mostly two-laned, is often as potholed as the free roads, and it’s rather short. Just 5km, in fact.
If I’m paying to drive on a road, I at least want the option of being able to safely pass Mr Grey barely hitting 75km/h on a sunny day.
At least the TEL is a genuinely pleasant road to drive on – when it’s not down to one lane and a 70km/h speed limit, anyway.
Yes, I’m salty. I’m salty that the toll prices are going up on Tauranga’s two toll roads – two of the country’s three toll roads, by the way. It’s a rise of only 20 cents per trip for cars and motorcycles, but it grinds my gears (haha) that we have to pay at all. Especially when the roads aren’t kept in tip-top shape.
I’m salty that Waikato gets a beautiful, safe, long expressway all the way to Auckland while we here in the Bay have to pay for the privilege of using a 5km road between two suburbs.
I’m salty Waka Kotahi apparently needs to charge tolls on Takitimu Drive and the TEL to help cover debt repayments – but a bajillion other highways in this country don’t get the same treatment.
I’m down for user-pays in many situations, even roads, but it’s my opinion that charging tolls for just these three roads is not fair or necessary.
But, hey, maybe next time I go on a road trip, I’ll take a drive down Wellington’s 27km-long Transmission Gully and see how it compares to our humble Takitimu Drive.
At least I won’t be charged for the pleasure.
Sonya Bateson is a writer, reader, and crafter raising her family in Tauranga. She is a Millennial who enjoys eating avocado on toast, drinking lattes and defying stereotypes. As a sceptic, she reserves the right to change her mind when presented with new evidence.
