Wet Whitianga

Gill's notebook:

Auk. to Coromandel. Set off. Cloudy but dry. INN bus to Beach Rd. Car picking up - ok, drove on 1 to turn off to Coromandel, busy roads. Supermarhet at Thame. Pak 'n Save - paid Halifax. Drove over hills in fog to Whitianga. Motel ok. Expensive meal at Saby's Kitchen-  $71

So much for the famed scenic drive

Storm clouds over Shearwater estuary

We planned a trip to the local museum, it was closed.

It's a lovely spot - developed as a weekend destination for Aucklanders - but pleasant nonetheless.

We are beginning to appreciate a kind of ambient dry humour in New Zealand.

Like the name of the band starring at the local pub 

As well as the dry humour, New Zealand's deliberately 'retro' style is beginning to grow on us. The most overt manifestation of this is the way high streets are much less commodified than in Europe and the USA, local shops outnumber national and international brands. It feels like how high streets were back home in the 1970s. For example, IKEA may have conquered Europe, America, China, Russia - in fact most of the developed and developing world, but there is not one IKEA store in New Zealand. Looking at the interior design of the motel we are staying in we began to wonder if the lack of an IKEA store was not just about economics, geographical isolation and logistics, but that IKEA's brand of lo-cost flatpack modernism was simply not to New Zealanders taste. That there was a preference for recycling and upcycling - shabby chic prevailed. 

Shearwater on the Estuary - cheap, comfortable - but so 1970s!

Initially we were somewhat dismissive of this retro look, gently taking the piss really, but as days went by we grew to appreciate it, not just because it is comforting and nostalgic, but also it questions our throwaway mentality, why must things have to conform to style police thinking. If you live with it long enough even the banana yellow table lamp might take on a quirky charm, familiarity breeding acceptance not contempt.