With yesterday's arrival at Masterton we have completed our North Island tour. In the next few days we will look at Wellington and then transfer to the South Island.
Therefore, it is now probably time for an interim conclusion.
In numbers we drove 1759km since Auckland, since we bought the car it is already 2733km). On 25 days we drove an average of 61.9km in 3h44. In addition we had 7 rest days with up to 50km (more than short touring days). Our maximum speed was 68km/h, but normally we rarely go downhill over 50km/h. Even at high speeds, our heavily loaded tandem with trailer was very stable on the road.
On the road we bought 5 new tires, although the now already over 900km old Schwalbe Marathon tires still look very good and hopefully will last a long time. Further we have replaced the rear chain after 2100km (since purchase, not since Auckland). In addition, we need to replace the brake shoes of the disc brake, because this was us on the road in a bike store badly readjusted and we had realized that too late.
Otherwise we have already sent material home twice and are satisfied with the remaining luggage. Our tent withstands the Wellington wind (so far), the MSR stove is very reliable. It should be noted that in New Zealand it is not usual to buy 0.5 liters of gasoline for a camping stove at a gas station. You have to explain to the staff that you really know what you are doing and that you will not hold them responsible if something goes wrong :-)
With the campsites we are very satisfied so far, with two exceptions. They are all very well equipped and clean. Normally you also get what you pay for, at the cheap ones the condition is usually very good for the price you pay! So far we were only dissatisfied with one campground in Oruaiti Beach.
On the way we appreciate (especially Rana) that there are very many public toilets, which are usually in good condition.
With the available food we could also make friends and despite the many pasta we have some variety thanks to various creative sauces. For breakfast, we are unfortunately limited to 3 varieties in the 1kg yogurt buckets. Milk powder became our miracle cure for sauces and for milk to the cornflakes.