Albany office to Rotorua private car — Annelies's special occasion

The late morning sun was beating down on the Albany office carpark, the kind of late spring heat that makes you grateful for the air conditioning when it kicks in. Annelies V. was standing by the entrance, looking a little lost until she saw the car. She had a small, elegant suitcase and a hopeful expression, the sort you see on people heading towards something good, or at least something important. She was Belgian, she told me, here for a special occasion – a friend’s wedding, not too far from Rotorua.

We set off heading south, the usual weekend crawl out of the suburbs giving way to the open motorway as we passed through the city limits and onto State Highway 1. Annelies was quiet initially, just watching the landscape blur past, the familiar greens of the Auckland suburbs giving way to the richer agricultural country around Pukekohe. She’d mentioned she was catching up with a few old friends, people she hadn’t seen in years, all gathering for the same wedding. It’s always interesting how these occasions pull people from different corners of the world back together. She’d been living in Auckland for a few months, working in a tech firm, but this was her first real exploration of the wider North Island.

As we reached the Bombay Hills, the traffic thinned out, and she started to relax a bit. She pointed out the new bypass section we were travelling on, mentioning how different it looked from a previous trip she’d taken with friends a few months back. We chatted generally about the drive – the contrast between the concrete jungle she’d left behind in Brussels and the rolling hills of the Waikato. She seemed particularly taken with the scattered trees and the way the farmland folded into one another, a softness to it that she said was quite unlike the more structured landscapes of Europe.

We stopped for a coffee in Tamahere, a classic Kiwi roadside break. While she stretched her legs, I topped up the tank, checking the tyre pressures. The wedding was the next day, a Saturday affair, giving her a chance to settle in and perhaps see a bit of Rotorua before the main event. She was one of the bridesmaids, someone who’d known the bride since childhood back in Belgium, and the journey felt like a pilgrimage as much as a simple trip. She showed me a photo on her phone – a group of younger women, Annelies beaming amongst them. Time and distance had clearly not dimmed the connection.

Back on the road, the landscape began to change again as we approached Tirau. You could feel the slight drop in temperature as we travelled inland. Annelies commented on the unique corrugated iron sculptures that lined the main street of Tirau. That’s the magic of these drives; you move through these little pockets of distinct character, each town with its own story written in its streetscape. She was keen to get to Rotorua, keen to meet up with her other friends who had arrived earlier in the week, to rehearse and finalise plans for the ceremony.

As we descended towards Rotorua, the air took on that faint, unmistakable scent of sulphur. It’s a smell you get used to, but it’s always a marker of arrival. We navigated through the initial suburbs, the geothermal activity subtly present in the steam rising from the ground in places. I dropped her off at a lovely boutique hotel near the lakefront, the gears of her small suitcase clicking quietly on the pavement. She thanked me, her smile wider now, a genuine warmth emanating from her. She said she was really looking forward to seeing everyone, to celebrating, and to just being here, in New Zealand, for this special moment. I watched her go, a small figure with a vital mission, carrying with her memories from afar and the promise of new ones to be made. It’s moments like these, these simple transfers of people from one place to another for life’s important events, that make the driving worthwhile.