Off to no-man's land

Even though the situation at Karen's was a bit tense we enjoyed our stay there and we promised that if we were back in Holland by the time Karen and the kids went t there to visit family we'd meet up somewhere for a drink. The following morning Elsbeth picked us up at around 9 and we set off to Te Kaha, which she estimated was around a 3 hour drive. On the way there she stopped in Opotiki (where she'd lived for about 20 years) to drop off some stuff and she took us for some ice-cream as well. Turns out that since the last time Elsbeth went to Te Kaha (some 20 years ago) they'd done some road work and it now only took us about an hour and 15 minutes to get to Te Kaha. Elsbeth mentioned that she was going to go caving with a friend of hers at Waitomo caves, and not with any of the companies either, but just with her friend who was an experienced caver, if we were still around at the 22nd of January she said we could tag along with them if we wished. Since I had recently let Jasper in on my desire to one day go caving for real I was thrilled at this and told her I'd love to go with them and we'd do our best to be around Waitomo around that time. At Te Kaha we said goodbye to her, as she went into a small cafe to drink some coffee and we went to the side of the road to catch our next ride. As we'd put all our bags by the side of the road I noticed a fly persistently hanging around and zooming about our stuff. As I tried to shoo it off I noticed it wasn't a fly at all, it was a bee. Simultaneously me and Jasper turned to look at the bushes next to us and found that there was a bee hive right next to us with hundreds of bees swarming around it. Quickly we grabbed all our stuff and moved up a decent way along the road, occasionally running a bit to try and get rid of the bees that were now following us. When Elsbeth came out of the cafe 20 minutes later we were still standing there, so we had a chance to say goodbye to her again. Smiling, Elsbeth told us that all good things take time.
About 5 minutes later we were picked up by a big Maori guy who said he wasn't going very far but that he could us about 10km up the road; seeing as every little bit helped we accepted and he dropped us off in the middle of nowhere.
Looking at our surroundings we were desperately hoping for a ride to come soon, because getting stuck at that place could mean a bit of trouble as there was no place to pitch our tent. Luckily within 20 minutes a car stopped for us with 3 guys in it, one of them holding a wine glass. We thought that was a bit strange but dumped our bags in their bag anyway and they took us all the way to the tip of the cape. Here we quickly got picked up by two Maori women in a beat up pick-up filled with fishing gear. They said they'd take us to the top of the hill, we had no idea where this was so we said ok and dropped our stuff with the fishing gear (easier said than done). Turns out the top of the hill was about a 2 minute drive away, so it wasn't much help and we were now in fact at a much worse place than we were at before; just behind a sharp upward turn and to top it off it was starting to rain. Luckily, after about 10 minutes, a Maori couple stopped and picked us up. They were going to take us almost all the way to Te Puia Springs so it was beginning to look as if we were going to get to our destination before the day was over. They were really nice and both taught at a local high school, teaching multiple subjects.
After an hours drive we arrived at an intersection about 28km from Te Puia and it was here they dropped us off. It was starting to get a bit late (around 6 pm) and there weren't all that many cars going past, after 20 minutes we still didn't have a ride but then suddenly we heard a truck's horn and found that a truck had stopped for us even though we didn't really try to get a ride from him (they usually don't have enough space). He drove small rocks from the quarry to the forest where they used them to create roads for the logging trucks. He was going to drop us in Te Puia Springs but had to get a load of stones first, so we went with him to the quarry where they loaded his two trailers with stones and then back to the road and off to Te Puia. He took our number and said he'd send us a text when he was back home in Gisborne so that maybe we could stay at his place, but we never heard from him again. In Te Puia Jasper phoned Teah's parents to tell em we were in town to pick up the phone, but they didn't answer. After debating on what to do for a while Jasper went into the petrol station to ask where they lived (we had their address) but apparently when they tried to call again they got through, Teah's mom said she was busy that evening so that they unfortunately didn't have any time for us, but that the next morning they'd have plenty of time. We were a bit distressed about this because there wasn't any budget accommodation in Te Puia, and after a few minutes Jasper decided to call again and ask if it really wasn't possible for us to come pick up the phone quickly and explained that it would be hard for us to travel to the next town and back again just for the phone. At this point she said she'd be able to give us the phone quickly, and after a few minutes she turned up in her car, with her being a big hyper-active dog who climbed all over me when I sat in the back. We picked up the phone and afterwards she offered to take us to Tokomaru Bay where there was more accommodation for backpackers, we accepted and soon found ourselves at a hostel called Brian's place. It was a nice hostel on top of a hill, overlooking the ocean. It was fairly expensive but we didn't really mind because it was only for one night. We slept on mattresses on the loft, but we didn't mind it was nicer than your standard dorm room and we had the entire hostel to ourselves, with the exception of a Swiss girl who stayed there to take care of the place. Brian himself only dropped by twice a day to check up on things. Our lovely dinner consisted of spaghetti and tomato sauce, we didn't bring any meat or vegetables in case we got stranded without a fridge. It was plain, but warm, and it filled our bellies. The next morning we found the owner, Brian, talking to the Swiss girl and we soon entered the conversation as well. As the conversation was reaching its end and Brian was about to say goodbye he sudden exclaimed something while pointing towards the sea. I didn't quite hear what he said and when I looked at where he pointed I saw nothing. When I asked what he said he replied "Didn't you see the dolphins?", and after that he told us to get in his van and he'd drive us all over to the beach to get a better look. His van didn't have any backseats though, so we just had to crouch and hang on the steels bars; it wasn't very comfortable but who cares when you have the chance to see dolphins. When we got to the beach we were all looking around to try and find them, but we saw nothing. We were worried that they might have swum on, but just then we saw a fin break the water and soon after 2 more fins. Quickly we raced to the edge of the water and got our cameras ready, but it proved to be a challenge indeed to get them on camera, in the end the best we managed were a few shots of the sea with a small black speck that is supposed to be a fin. The sight was amazing though, there were at least 4 of them and they hung around at the beach for at least 30 minutes. Eventually we gave up on taking pictures and Brian took us back to the hostel. The very second we had all our stuff packed up the sky opened up and a monsoon descended on us. When we looked out of the windows all we saw was clear blue sky in every direction, the rain cloud was directly above our heads, and only above our heads. It took 15 minutes for the rain to stop and we could move on again. After a short walk down to the main road we positioned ourselves opposite a small shop at the end of a bridge. Only 3 minutes had passed before a car signalled it was pulling over, unfortunately the car was pulling over to visit the shop. To our frustration this happened at least a dozen times before two guys finally pulled over for us. They worked at a car dealer and were just coming back from delivering a car to a customer and were on their way back to Gisborne. Because their boss paid them for the drive as well, they were in no hurry at all to get back to proper working and offered to drop us off right at the entrance to the campsite. My lonely planet said the price of a tent site there was about $22 so we were unsure if we were going to stay there or not, but when we asked how much it was we found that it was in fact only $14 per person, which is really cheap. After setting up our tent we headed out into town to find some lunch, an i-site and food for that night. Lunch was found at the Pizza Hut where we ordered a combination of 4 pizzas, which was supposed to feed about 3-4 people but should be barely enough for us two. Or so we thought, the pizza was so filling that I couldn't eat my half fully and had to leave about 1-2 bites to be thrown away, much to my dismay. Feeling like we could hardly move from eating too much we set out to find the i-site, and after walking down the entire street we were at first told it was in we couldn't find anything. Thinking we must have probably missed it we walked back, but after about 10 minutes we still hadn't found it so we asked someone on the street who replied "You see that sign that says i-center? It's right there." Of course it is. Turns out it was directly opposite the Pizza Hut. Here we picked up some flyers on surf lessons and read some interesting stuff about a dolphin named Moko that's been hanging around Gisborne's beaches the last few months. After this we did some grocery shopping and went back to our tent. We called up one of the surf schools but didn't get any answer so we tried the mobile number, this time we got a dude on the phone who sounded a bit uninterested and when I said we'd like to book surf lessons for the next day he said he'd call us back that night to confirm. We spent the rest of the night in the lounge reading and working on our blog entries, the pizza from that afternoon still laid on our stomachs so heavily that we didn't even bother to make dinner and just ate 2 slices of bread to at least get some fibres in our body. We still hadn't heard anything from the surf guy so Jasper decided to give him a ring, he said he didn't have time for the lessons the next day but it would be possible to do it the day after. The following morning we took our time and since we had nothing to do that day we decided to just hang out on the beach. As we were sitting there reading our books and occasionally going in the ocean for a little swim in the ice-cold water I suddenly saw a large group of people gathered in the water and just then I heard someone say that it must be the dolphin. I wasted no time and rushed over there straight away and sure enough I saw a dolphin surfacing every now and then, only about 5 meters out to sea. There must have been around 30 people standing around it, most of them kids, as Moko (the dolphin) was playing with some girls body board. There seemed to be only one man really dared to get close to Moko, the rest was a bit scared because Moko was a large dolphin and immensely strong. Because of this I had the chance to play with Moko and for quite a long time too. The game we played didn't seem like much of a game to me but Moko seemed to enjoy it, and I think when it comes to playing games with dolphins it doesn't really matter what kind of game you play. He'd want you to grab the ankle strap of the body-board and gently pull the board along while Moko was waiting underwater, he'd then suddenly rise up and knock the board up with such force that he knocked the strap out of your hand too, he'd then bring it back to you and hand you the strap with its snout. After a while some other guy came to see the dolphin and he was trying to take the board, Moko obviously didn't like this and was starting to squeak and click more and more, his movements were becoming wilder and more aggressive as well. I decided this was a good time to head back to Jasper who stayed on the beach because he didn't want to swim with Moko for some reason.
The rest of the day we just hung around and that evening we used up the last of the supplies we bought in case we got stuck on the East Cape; rice with baked beans and frankfurter sausages, quite nice actually. The following morning we woke up early for our appointment with Magoo our surf instructor, we were going to have 1.5 hours of surf lessons and half a day at a place called Rehe Rockslide. He was 30 minutes late, but we didn't care too much, he looked like a surfer grown old with long blond hair despite the fact that he was balding and for some reason he ended every sentence with "Bro", he also had a small dog with him called Giovanni. After we picked up his lunch we drove to the beach (which was actually right next to our campsite) and having arrived there Magoo determined that there was absolutely no surf, and that it'd be better if we went to the rockslide first and come back later to see if the surf had picked up. So off we went to Rehe Rockslide, which was about an hour's drive away. During the drive we found out that Magoo used to be in the top 10 of NZ's surfers during his younger days, and that he went to Italy every summer (so summer in Italy) to sell jewellery he buys in Bali, claiming to make about $40.000 in the summer months.
When we got to Rehe Rockslide Magoo seemed surprised to find only 1 other car there, usually there were a lot more so it seemed the change of plans worked in our favour. The rockslide itself was a large sloped rock, almost completely smooth and with a thin layer of water streaming over it. We were given a wetsuit and a body board, and were told to just lie on the board and slide down. If you did it right you could reach tremendous speeds before you hit the pool at the bottom. Even though the surface was very smooth (with a few exceptions) it was still solid rock and if you let your legs fall down a bit too low or if you hit a bump you weren't expecting you could really bang up your feet en legs. We raced against the other people there a few times, two guys and two girls, but they were a lot better and smoked us every time. They also had a big inflatable mattress with them which you could also use to go down on and they let us borrow it a couple of times. Magoo, even though he comes there quite often, seemed very enthusiastic about going down on the mattress so the three of us went down it multiple times, and I have to say that was a lot of fun.
Eventually, after one of the other guys accidentally slid over the mattress in the pool and launched himself, we got the idea that maybe we should hold the mattress up slightly and turn it into a ramp. And no sooner said than done we had ourselves a bonafide rockslide ramp, it required at least two people to hold it up but the airtime you could get on that thing was amazing. Eventually a lot, and I do mean a lot, more people showed up and we started to have to wait in line to go down the slide so we decided this was a good time to move on and we said goodbye to the other guys. I was pretty glad we were moving one, because one of my knees had swollen to twice the size of my other knee and I had cuts and bruises all over my legs and feet. We stopped by some champagne pools, as they were apparently called, to have our lunch. The pools were basically just natural circular pools, but they looked very pretty. Unfortunately there were a lot of drunk youths sitting around there as well, so we didn't really get much of a quiet lunch. When we were in the car and driving back to Gisborne Jasper asked "where's the dog?" and a distinct "Oh crap" expression appeared on Magoo's face and with screeching tires he turned the van around. When we got back to the pool we picked up the dog and were on our way to Gisborne again.
In Gisborne Magoo asked if we maybe wanted to get some ice-cream before surfing, and we though that was a silly thing to ask; of course we want to buy some ice-cream! The ice-cream was really nice, but unfortunately the surf wasn't, there were some waves there but Magoo concluded we'd be wasting our time if we tried to surf those. Instead he said he'd give us some instructions on dry land and he'd let us have the boards for free the next day so we could practice all day. The next day we woke up early (9am) and headed out to the beach. There was some kind of school competition going on so we were forced to walk further up the beach, but it was a lot quieter there anyway so we didn't have to worry about surfing into other people. At first there didn't seem to be that many good waves, but every once in a while a good big wave would come along which we tried to catch. The first few times neither of us managed to stand up, the boards we had now were a lot smaller than the ones we had in Raglan or even the ones Magoo gave us instructions on and therefore harder to stand up on, but after a while Jasper managed to stand up and I followed soon after. It wasn't long before both of us were standing up fairly regularly and were managing to ride to waves for longer than 5 seconds. Suddenly we saw Moko with some surfers a bit to the right of us and we decided to paddle our way over. When we got there we found that Moko had a new fun game, called "Knock the surfers off their board" and he decided to make me an active participant. He swam next to me and at first gently nudged my board, when I didn't fall off he tried harder and harder. I was hanging on for dear life because I was afraid he was going to try and steal my board even though I was still attached to it, but eventually he managed to knock me off. Fortunately he didn't try to steal my board and simply went on to knock his next victim off his board, it was actually quite funny to see him go around knocking all the surfers off their boards. We then went for some quick lunch before we came back to surf some more. We were really getting the hang of it and standing up was getting easy and we managed to ride our waves longer and longer. When we had enough we headed back to the campsite and stayed at the lounge for a while.
By then my foot was starting to ache really bad and I went to put a band aid on it, it was then that I suddenly realised I couldn't find my toiletry bag with my contact lenses as well as my toothbrush etc. in it. I had probably forgotten it in the toilet block that morning when I went to put on my swimming trunks, but when I looked there it was nowhere to be found. I went to ask at the reception to see if they had perhaps found it, but unfortunately they hadn't. I was starting to panic a bit, because I really didn't feel like forking over a few hundred dollars to buy new contacts, so I wrote a note saying I lost my bag and if the person that found it could please give me a call on my cell phone and stuck it on the door to the men's room. When I went to the bathroom an hour two later I found that the note was gone, I asked the reception for permission before I posted it so I knew it wasn't them and figured someone was being a jerk (I didn't receive any calls or texts) and I made another note. When I went to brush my teeth that night I found that the note was gone again, and still I received no calls. A bit depressed I figured whoever took my bag wanted to keep it to themselves for some strange reason and conceded to having to buy new lenses along with everything else. That night a wound on the sole of my foot was aching particularly badly, it was obviously infected and my whole foot felt sore. I laid awake for hours while the throbbing got worse and I started to hope it wasn't some horrible flesh eating virus. I could already hear the doctor; "I'm sorry, but we're going to have to amputate your foot." "Not my foot Doc! You might as well cut off my leg!" "I'm sorry son, but there's no way we can save it".
But after about 2 or 3 hours the throbbing started to subside a bit and instead of the heat that accompanied the throbbing I now felt a warmth around the area where the wound was. I realised the worst was over and I finally fell asleep. The next day we planned to go into town and replace all my lost items and get something for my infected foot. When I woke up and looked at my phone however I saw that I had one missed call, and when I listened to my voice-mail I found that it was the reception and that someone had turned in my toiletry bag! I was very relieved to find that everything was still inside it and I wouldn't have to replace anything. The rest of the day we rested, mainly for my foot but also a bit because we had nothing more to do. The next day we headed out for Napier, after a gruelling walk through town in the burning sun we finally arrived at what seemed to be a good spot for hitch-hiking. It wasn't long however before were driving past yelling at us that we should go further down the road a bit more, so eventually we decided they were probably right and walked a bit further. Here we were picked up by a lady and her 3 year old son, she wasn't going to Napier but she took us to the exit that way which was a huge help. From there we got a ride from an old man in a pick-up truck who would take us all the way to Napier. He turned out to be a really nice guy and we talked pretty much the whole way there. He turned out to drive a motorbike, one of those Japanese road bikes, and he loved to race it down the South Island which seemed a bit strange for an older man but we thought was awesome. He also stopped by an ice-cream shop along the way and bought us and himself some ice-cream. He said that that was one of the best places in New Zealand for ice-cream, and when he ordered a 1 scoop ice-cream and got 3 scoops instead I could see what he meant. I couldn't imagine how big a 2 scooper must have been. He dropped us off at the local holiday park and said goodbye. While we were at the reception to book our stay we also booked a trip to the aquarium, where it was apparently possible to dive in the big tank to feed and swim with the sharks. For dinner we had some take away from the on-site restaurant and the burgers were surprisingly good, though the fries were, as usual, not very good.
While we were reading in the lounge Jasper received a phone call form the reception that the guy who had picked us up had called to say we left something in his truck. As we were thinking of what we could have possibly forgotten in his truck we walked to the reception to get his number. I called him as soon as we got his number and when I asked what we'd forgotten he replied "What you left in my truck was an invitation to our Christmas dinner", apparently he had told his wife about the two guys he picked up and how they were celebrating Christmas all alone far away from home, at which point his wife told him to call us up and invite us over for Christmas. We were both pretty excited about this and though it was also a bit scary to have to meet some stranger's family we were happy we were going to have at least something of a proper Christmas.
The next day we went to the Aquarium and as we were standing outside the campsite trying to determine which way we had to walk a car stopped next to us as it was exiting the park. "Are you going to city centre?" the woman behind the wheel asked, and when we replied that we were going to the aquarium she simply said "Hop in". We now arrived at the aquarium way too early but this gave us the opportunity to look around a bit first. The main attractions were the kiwi house where we could see a live kiwi, unfortunately kiwis are nocturnal and you couldn't use flash so I didn't manage to get a good picture of it, and also the big tank with the sharks in it. At first the fish in the big tank didn't seem to be too impressive, sure the fish were big but the sharks weren't. It wasn't until my second round through the aquarium that I spotted the big shark in the back, he was about 3 meters long, had a huge mouth and we were going to swim with him. At 1 pm we geared up because we were a bit early we were allowed to snorkel through the tank first, so we could get a feel as to what swimming with sharks was about. The sharks were quite shy though, so during the snorkelling we didn't see too much of them. When it was time to feed the fish me and Jasper swam to the right spot with a bucket in our hands and descended to the bottom of the aquarium. The fish were swarming around us with huge kingfish and snapper impatiently trying to grab the pieces of fish out of our hands. The stingrays kept trying to eat our flippers, so we soon fed them some fish as well. The trick was to lay the fish on your hand and keep your hand flat while he swims over it and grabs it with its mouth. You had to be careful he didn't eat your finger though, because they had sharp teeth. Unfortunately the sharks didn't seem to be very hungry and only some of the smaller ones came around to steal some fish.
After the food was gone we were allowed to swim around in the aquarium, and this time the sharks came a lot closer, it was quite scary to see the big shark swimming right towards you, only to turn around at the last second. When we'd swam a few circles around the tank and were starting to feel a bit like goldfish, we began to look at the people walking through the tunnel that passed under the tank; especially the little kids were funny to look at as their mouths were always wide open in disbelief that there was someone in the water with the sharks. When we got cold and bored we decided to head back out again. It was a lovely experience and it looks hilarious in our dive logs, so well worth the money.

The next day we did our laundry in an attempt to have some half decent clothes for our Christmas dinner.

it seems I forgot to post the link to this gallery, they're older photo's mainly of our canyon trip. http://s713.photobucket.com/albums/ww138/lingonlas/NZ%2027%20November/

Rollin. . .

Have you ever felt like you a hamster? Does the sight of wood make your front teeth tingle with delight? Do you sleep in small burrows and store food in your cheeks? Then listen to this!
Those crazy Kiwis have invented Hamster Balls for Men© , also known as Zorbs© . Do not miss your chance to roll down a hill in huge plastic ball and experience for yourself what hamsters have been experiencing for the last hundred years! (Disclaimer: this number is a rough estimation, not a fact) Squeak with delight as experienced Zorb handlers push you down a hill!
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We awoke, unexpectedly, with only slight muscle ache and were feeling fresh and ready for the day! The plan was to go Zorbing and visit the local mud geysers, but when we arrived at the bus stop we found that the busses only go till 3 O'clock and we’d spent so long talking to people during breakfast that we would have only had 1 hour to Zorb before the last bus would come to pick us up. We reckoned this was a bit too tight for comfort and we didn’t want to feel rushed (not to mention that the thought of being stranded in the middle of nowhere wasn’t particularly appealing to us) so we decided we’d go the next day. Having decided this, it took us a long time to figure out what we’d do instead, we ended up spending half a day in an internet cafe and the rest in the cinema. We went to see a movie called Zombie Land, which is quite a fun movie if you like macabre humour and unnecessary violence against the undead, which we do.
The next day we caught the bus and set off to Zorb© . We had a choice between a wet Zorb, and a dry one. The wet one involved being rolled down a hill in one of those big hamster balls after they let a bit of water in it, so that when you slip you don’t go tumbling through the ball but get a more waterslide-like experience. The dry one involved getting strapped inside the ball tightly so you can’t move while they kick the ball down the hill and you lose all sense of up and down.
We decided the wet Zorb was for pansies and did the dry Zorb, despite Jasper feeling slightly nauseous. After strapping myself in they removed the gate that was keeping the ball in place and slowly it started to roll down the hill. Slowly but surely the ground was coming towards me as I started my first revolution, my body started to feel heavy in the straps and before I knew it I was upside down. The ground slowly traded places with the sky once more and after that they merged into one big blur as I lost track of what was up and what was down. I could feel the ball gaining speed and eventually it started to develop a small bounce as well. Unfortunately the whole experience was over too quick and soon I exited the ball and walked back to the side in a more or less straight line. Even though at 40 bucks the 30 second ride was a bit of a rip-off, it was an interesting experience that I wouldn't want to miss for anything.
Afterwards we went back to our hostel and booked our trip to the shire (aka Matamata).
We got picked up the following morning and arrived at hobbiton tours (and sheep farming experience), here we were shipped onto a big bus full of other Lord of the Rings tourists and driven through a country filled with rolling green hills and lots of sheep. Lots of sheep. The girl behind the wheel of the bus gave us some background information on the countryside and pointed out places where certain scenes were filmed. "This is where Frodo stood when Gandalf arrived on his cart, and there way off in the distance is where he jumped down to to reach Gandalf, so Frodo had quite a mighty jump".
When we arrived at hobbiton they let us out the bus and allowed us to walk around freely. The main attraction here were hobbit holes that were still more or less intact, due to copyright issues they weren't allowed to be completely intact, they consisted of white plywood outlines of the hobbit holes scattered across the hill. There was nothing behind their little doors as obviously all the inside scenes were filmed in a studio, but to us LotR nerds it was a lot of fun to be there.
We soon found out though that as far as being a LotR nerd goes, we were newbs. As the people around us were discussing what other movie sites they visited, who got tattoos of the tree of Gondor and why one of them named her son Elijah we felt sort of out of place, we were too normal to fit in. Turns out we were in luck, because as we were walking through the hobbit holes we noticed a guy on top of the hill putting flowers in the garden of bag end. Turns out they are going to be filming for the Hobbit soon and they were fixing up bag end for a promotional photo shoot of some sort. After the tour they took us to a small barn and showed us how they sheered sheep. Afterwards we were all handed a bottle of milk and told to go outside. All of a sudden about 12 baby sheep ran passed us desperately trying to grab the milk bottle from our hands. Jasper didn't want to, but they were so cute that I couldn't resist feeding them and petting them as they greedily downed the bottle of milk.
When we got back to the van our driver got us some lunches that his mother prepared for us, I thought this was really thought of her and gratefully ate the small cake that was in the bag.
The next day we made our biggest sign yet and were headed for Whakatane, as we walked out of the hostel we were accompanied for a small while by an American guy we met there who was covered in tattoos from back when he was in a speed metal band. He was a really nice guy, though sometimes a bit strange, so it was nice of him to walk with us at least to the point where he had to wait for the bus.
While we were standing at the edge of town with our massive sign (I could hardly open it fully because my arms were a tad too short) and after a while we got picked up by a guy who promised to take us to the exit to Whakatane where we'd have no problems getting a ride.
And sure enough, after a few minutes a lady stops for us and tells us she's not going all the way to Whakatane but can get us halfway if we want. As we accepted her offer I noticed she had an accent so I asked her where she was from, though I had a sneaky suspicion I already knew.
She said she was Dutch.

http://s713.photobucket.com/albums/ww138/lingonlas/NZ%2013%20December/

Raindrops keep falling on my head

We left sunny Raglan. We left sunny Raglan as the rain was pouring down in us in endless streams. As we dragged our sorry asses through town, the water drenching our bags and ourselves to the core, a man pulled over for us. His car was flashy and so was he. As he played his music too loud he described to us his get up and go lifestyle, he spewed his hallmark wisdom on modern society all over us "Anything is possible if set your mind on it". It was his car that kept us dry, and his foot on the peddle that kept us going, so we smiled and agreed. We emerged from his self-made world into the rain at an exit not far from Waitomo Caves. It was obvious that we were going to get wet one way or another. We put our bags under bushes and cars to keep them as dry as possible, which meant that they were wet. Just wet and under cars and bushes, but it soothed our minds that we at least tried to keep them dry. Soon after our bags were as wet as they were going to get we got picked up and were driven to Waitomo Caves, Population: 47, amount of shops: 0. The price for a piece of ground to put your tent on was ridiculous and we decided to keep our stay short and sweet. I read about an organisation called Absolute Adventures, which does the more extreme cave journeys and was hoping to experience some serious spelunking. But, like the shop and probably some other businesses in town, they had gone bankrupt and no longer existed. WWe settled on a more touristy one instead.
We woke up and shut down the alarm. We woke up again and were in a hurry. We swallowed a loaf of bread and briefly touched our teeth with some toothpaste. As we ran up to our transport our driver had gone looking for us and was getting impatient.
After we signed a document agreeing that if we died or were seriously hurt we wouldn't be able to sue them for it. Seeing as dead people can't sue nobody I was okay with that.
We geared up and after a short introductory course to abseiling were sent down to the bottom of the caves. Jasper went down first and when he disappeared out of sight the rope kept jerking up and down, as if horrible creatures from the depth were feasting on his dangling body. After the rope stopped jerking the guide signalled for the next person to step forward. Three other people had gone down before it was my turn. As they booted me off the platform I slowly spun my way down into the mouth of the cave. The hole got progressively narrower and it wasn't long before I had to squeeze my way through. With some precise manoeuvring I managed to get through and entered the first chamber of the cave. The face of the wall was wet and slippery so I balanced myself with my knees as I lowered myself in. Upon reaching the floor of the cave Lyam congratulated me on making it down alive and told me to sit with the others. Jasper told me he found something interesting in a small side chamber and as he led me there, he pointed out a pile of bones lying on the ground. They were the remains of sheep dumb or unfortunate enough to fall into the cave. The dumb cows were more fortunate; they were too big to fit through the hole and got stuck in it rather than plummet to their deaths. Sometimes it pays to be big.
After we were all down we moved to our next descent, a flying fox. As we zipped down the line one by one everyone turned off their lights to give the ride an extra dimension. Jasper was the first to go down in absolute darkness and I followed him shortly after. We were sitting there at the bottom, waiting while one of the girls was coming down. As she reached the bottom of the line we suddenly heard an immense bang, for a second we were afraid the line had snapped, but it turned out that Lyam had thrown a bag down into the water to pick up later. They fed us some hot chocolate and a piece of cake and informed us we were to jump down off the ledge into the water below, making sure we landed on a tube they were going to provide us. Tom showed us how to do it, holding the tube under his butt he jumped down and as he contacted the water an explosion reverberated through the cave. It sounded like they fired a cannon right next to my ear, but apparently that sound was normal, and so I jumped after him. The water was cold, despite the wetsuits and manoeuvring while sitting in the tube was hard work. Luckily there was a rope fixed to the side of the cave which we could use to pull ourselves along. After some bad jokes about eels (one of the girls was terrified of the eels that live there) we made it to the end of the passage. Here we formed a big chain by putting our feet on the tube of the person in front of us and Lyam pulled us back in total darkness. Or, it would have been total darkness if it wasn’t for the massive amount of glow worms attached to the roof of the cave, forming amazing constellations and providing ample light for Lyam to see where he was going.
After we got back to our starting point we abandoned our tubes and continued on foot, sometimes wading through knee-high water, sometimes swimming. After what didn’t seem that long a fork in the road, here they offered us a choice one path was called the “Path of Tranquillity” and the other the “Path of Doom”, one was a nice walk back to the surface and the other was a free climb up two waterfalls which would also end up back at the surface. After some careful deliberation we chose the more sensible path, the Path of Doom. Even though we had helmets on, and Lyam and Tom were going to give us very accurate instructions on where to put our hands and feet on the way up, there was a very real danger of falling down a few meters and at the very least breaking something. With this in mind we headed for the falls and one by one started making our way up. When it was my turn I quickly found out that waterfalls are loud, very loud. It was hard to hear what Tom was saying while I was still at the bottom, let alone when I was halfway up the waterfall. Despite this I, like all the others, made my way safely up both waterfalls to emerge triumphantly at the surface, where a clear blue sky and a bright sun were waiting for us. It seemed that we had spent the one good day we were going to have all week inside a cold and dark cave, typical.
We spent the remainder of the day in the pool and hot pool of our Holiday Park, feeling we were at least getting the most out of our expensive stay. We dined at local bar for not a lot of money at all and spent the entire night lying awake wondering why the hell the cows were making so much noise.
The next morning was filled with sounds of water hitting tent cloth and as we zipped open our tent it was as if someone pulled a grey veil over the world. We packed up our stuff and our tent as fast as we could, trying to keep them as dry as possible, with little success. After we had breakfast and asked the girl behind the reception for a cardboard box for our sign we headed off to a good place to hitch-hike. Fortunately for us, this was right outside our Holiday Park, unfortunately for us it was now raining even harder and there were no cars coming past. As we slowly watched our bags getting wetter and wetter someone finally pulled over for us, he wasn’t going where we wanted to go but promised to at least take us to the high-way. Unfortunately his car was one of those transport trucks where the trunk is uncovered, so our bags got wetter still. By the time he dropped us off our bags were soaked and our signs were falling apart from the rain. Even though our sign was hardly readable from up close we tried to use it for a while to no avail, eventually throwing it away and just using our thumbs. Soon after, much to our relief, a car stopped for us and we quickly put our bags in the trunk. Or well, that was the plan but the trunk was already pretty full so we first had to rearrange her belongings before we could try to fit our stuff in. Jasper ended up with half our stuff on our laps, leaving him vulnerable to be licked by the two puppies the girl had with her. The girl behind the wheel told us we were lucky, she had been going in the wrong direction for the last hour and to not make her trip entirely useless she decided to pick us up. She was on the way to pick up an automatic rocking bed for her baby when she completely missed her exit and ended up in the next town. She was going to drop us off in Hamilton, where she lived, from where we would hopefully be able to find a ride to Rotorua.
After we talked for a while she eventually offered us a stay in her house so that we could dry up and maybe continue the next day with better weather, we gratefully accepted. Even though we found it a bit strange to stay in a stranger’s house, she obviously had no problems with it and trusted us completely; at one point even leaving us alone in the house for about 30 minutes.
The next day she dropped us off on the road to Rotorua, just out of Hamilton and said goodbye, it wasn't long before we were picked up and were heading for Rotorua.
As it was still raining we didn't do much more than arrange a rafting trip for the next day and buy our groceries. We booked a longer, though less extreme, rafting trip and were lucky we were able to do it because they need 4 customers to be able to do that trip and it wasn't till later that day that a Japanese couple signed up.
When we got picked up the next day by our guide (called Tim), the first thing he asked us was why we were doing the easy river and not big one. We replied that we didn't really know there was that much of a difference and almost immediately made up our minds to do the other river as well, good bit of advertising by our guide there. We picked up the Japanese couple and headed for the river, which was about an hour away. After suiting up and some basic instructions to rafting (what to do when it flips over and such) we pushed the raft into the water and jumped in. The first few rapid were fun but nothing to be worried about, the 2nd set of rapids was one of the bigger ones on the trip and if we fell out there it could become dangerous as people had died there, or so we were told. We, however, survived those and though we crashed into some rocks a few times the overall experience was smooth. Soon after the 3rd set of rapids, the biggest ones on our trip, we hit a rock that I didn't see, and was unprepared for. I fell backwards and the foot that I was supposed to keep myself in the raft with slipped out of its strap, causing me to fall out of the raft completely. For some reason however the water seems a lot calmer when you're actually in it, probably because you are too low in the water to see the scary stuff. They pulled me back in the raft and we continued as if nothing happened. After a few more rapids we had a little swim in a quiet part of the river, the cold water was extremely refreshing which was good because even though it had been raining the whole time it was extremely hot in our wetsuits. After we all climbed back in the raft the Japanese trainee that was with us wanted to give a shot at being the steersman. It wasn't long after that we ran into a tree that had fallen into the river, completely blocking our way. It was evident by the slightly panicky tone in Tim's voice as he shouted at our steersman in training where to go, that he wasn't expecting that. Nevertheless we made it over the tree in a way that can almost be described as controlled, and soon after we reached the end of the trip.
While they drove us back we informed Tim that we'd be back the next day for the Kaituna River. Back in the hostel we made dinner, and crashed on our beds.
The next day Tim was waiting for us again and after we picked up a few other people we headed to their headquarters, close to the start of the Kaituna River. We suited up, had our little instruction again and headed for the river. We walked down a small path to the river as they launched our raft into the water a bit upstream. The plan was that one of the guys would grab the raft, hold on to it and let the rest climb into it. What actually happened was: one guy grabbed the raft, but let it drift too far out into the river, allowing the currents to get hold of it, Tim then screaming for everyone to get in the boat and us making a mad dash to get into it before it would be too far into the river. As we were the first raft in the water we had to wait for the other raft and had some time to practice paddling and steering. One of the instructions was for us all to go to one side of the raft if we were about to crash into a rock sideways, and we practiced this as well. When you have 7 guys on one side of a raft however it begins to tip over, which was evidently what Tim had in mind, and as a reflex one of the guys pulled back, his weight causing the raft to straighten out. Punishment was swift and just as Tim pushed the guy out of the raft into the water, the look on the guy's face was priceless. We headed out as soon as the other raft reached us and at the very first set of rapids I managed to almost get knock out of the raft, again. This time, even though my entire body was underwater, I managed to keep my foot in the strap and pull myself back into the boat. After a few fun rapids we arrived a point with relatively calm water and Tim told us to jump in the water off the front of the boat. The guy at the front kept looking back as if he couldn't believe he was actually supposed to jump in the water, because he took so long to jump there were still 3 of us left in the raft by the time the other raft reached us and Tim yelled at us to just jump off the side instead. The other guys started to make a mad dash down the river, competing as to whom could get to the other raft the fastest, when Tim suddenly yelled at them to come back to the raft quickly. It turned out that that just ahead was a pretty big rapid and when the guys saw this they desperately swam back to the raft, only 3 of the 4 made it back in the time. The last guy wasn't the best swimmer so couldn't get back in time and Tim yelled laughing that he was going to have to swim the rapid. At that point I was glad I managed to get back in time, but in retrospect it would have been fun to swim down a rapid, though the guy that did it did not agree with me on that point.
A few rapids later we were again told to jump in the water and as I was looking forward to a refreshing swim I immediately jumped in; the rest of the guys followed swiftly. All of them, except for one. Jasper. As we climbed back in the raft he sat there and with a smug smile exclaimed that he was happy to still be dry. At this point Tim yelled at us to push him into the water, I happily obliged and Jasper was soon splashing about in the cold river. The rest of the trip was filled with Tim steering us into rocks and back into waterfalls and soon (too soon) the trip was over again and we headed back to our Hostel.
The day after it was still raining and because we didn’t want to stay in Rotorua forever we decided to just go Luging, which is racing down an asphalt road off a hill in a small skelter like cart, take the chairlift back up and do it again. Because it was so rainy that day the place was deserted and we had the place almost to ourselves. We had a total of 5 rides and almost every run one of us crashed our cart and ended up in the mud. Every time our chair reached the top of the hill the operator was surprised at how much extra dirt we had managed to gather. In the final run Jasper managed to crash in the final corner, he was going so fast that he actually got launched cleanly out of his cart and made a face plant in the mud. I saw him as he walked back towards his cart and laughed so hard I crashed my cart as well (though not quite as hard as Jasper). While we were sitting there in the chairlift, Jasper’s entire left side covered in mud, he kept asking me how bad the mud on his face was and every single time I replied that it wasn’t too bad and every single time I burst into laughter (though it really wasn’t that bad).
After this we decided that was enough or one day and headed back to our Hostel.
The next day it was finally good weather and we decided we'd go Mountain Biking, the bike rental shop was in the centre of town and from there it was about 20 minutes riding to the Redwoods. We managed to get confused on where to go on the way there once, my fault, but despite that we made it to the tracks. After the first 5 minutes we spent in the actual forest I was already gasping for air and a mist of blackness was slowly clouding my vision. We spent a few minutes catching our breath before we continued in lowest gear and crawled our way up the non-relenting hill. Little did we know then, but it would take us just over 2 hours to get to the top and there was nothing funny about the steep road up there; except maybe for our futile attempts to ride all the way up rather than walk.
We had a detailed map of the hill, and all the tracks were clearly marked, it was all remarkably well maintained. Of course this meant that we got lost along the way but I have the sneaky suspicion this actually saved us a hard climb up along a grade 3 track. The first Track on our way down was called Billy-T, it was a grade 4 track (grade 5 being national championship difficulty) and it was madness. After a gentle dip the track soon turned into a highway to hell, with ridiculously steep curved descents, half meter drops one after the other and tree roots sticking out up to a foot high. Because we were cheap we rented MTB’s with no rear suspension (half the price of those with) and had to take all the blows with our legs. I stopped after a few minutes to wait for Jasper and found my legs were trembling from the adrenaline and sheer effort. When Jasper caught up we looked at each other with mouths open and eyes wide, unable to speak but our expressions saying enough. After a minute I raced onwards down the hill, at a few points trying to stop before I crashed. Unfortunately my seat was a bit too high, and every time I tried to stop, my feet didn’t reach the ground and the bike slowly rode out from underneath me, dragging me down with it. But, despite these rather embarrassing crashes I managed to stay on my bike down the ridiculous dips and curves through the muddy and slippery forest. We only had 2 more hours left before the rental shop closed and we had to really hurry if we were to get there in time, so we raced down the hill, never stopping for more than a minute. As we raced down a grade 3 track I suddenly found myself completely airborne, turns out that hill I took was actually a ramp, and afterwards facing an almost vertical drop. After the drop I braked hard to take the upcoming turn, only to be confronted with another ridiculous drop, it wasn’t until I reached an easier part of the track and went down a shallow drop that my bike slipped out underneath me and sent me crashing into a tree headfirst. Good thing I had a helmet on and didn’t feel a thing.
Because we were starting to run out of time and energy we drove along the main road for the last part, and though it didn’t provide any thrills as far as steep dips or scary curves the sheer speed you could build up there provided us with enough adrenaline.
On the way back we passed through a park filled with sulphur geysers and the smell of it, combined with our fatigue and empty stomach almost caused me to vomit, so despite our sore butts from lack of suspension we raced through there and arrived back at the shop 5 minutes before it closed.

Double Whammy

Two updates in one day!


As it was around noon when we arrived in Whitianga, we had plenty of time to check out the town. First stop: the library! Not because we wanted to get some books (we already carry around more than enough of those), but because we were hoping to find some free internet. Unfortunately they didn't have a wireless network, but they had some computers you could use for about half an hour. While Jasper did this, I set about to smash his record in Pinball (the stupid little game you get with every version of windows). We ran into the couple that gave us a ride there, and met them again at the supermarket. When we eventually got back to the Holiday Park, Jasper got busy trying to smash the record I set earlier (and he did) while I tried to get my journal up to date (my non-electronic one).
That evening we made pancakes, we make pancakes a lot, and watched the Big Lebowski on TV. This took a while because advertisers here seem intent on having one minute of commercials for every minute of programming; the movie took about 3-3.5 hours.
The next morning we set out for Hahei where Steffi (one of the girls we travelled around Northland with) was working. We didn't have any cardboard for our sign so we asked the manager of the camp if perhaps they had some for us, he said he did and came back with the tiniest bit of cardboard I'd ever seen. Not wanting to seem ungrateful we took it and thanked him as we made our way to the ferry. Because this ferry was for pedestrians only I was concerned we weren't going to be able to find a ride. When we disembarked on the other side of the river we realised we forgot our cardboard, further increasing my worries about finding a ride. We tried to stop the few cars that came by as we walked along the road but none of them showed any sign of stopping. Hahei was 13km from the ferry, so I figured that if we couldn't find a ride we'd at least be able to walk there and hopefully arrive before sundown. When we got to a cafe there was a man working outside and we decided to ask if he perhaps had some cardboard for us, since the walking was very tiring and the sun was burning holes in our heads (though my hat helped for me). He did, and we quickly made ourselves a sign. We flashed the sign the first car that came past and it stopped on the parking lot a few meters further up the road. Not daring to hope they stopped for us, we figured they were just people going to the beach and we were in no hurry to walk towards them. As we got close however a girl got out of the car and told us it would probably be a tight fit but that she was willing to take us to Hahei. Very relieved we opened the trunk and saw that it was already pretty full. We only managed to fit Jasper's backpack and our smaller bags in there and had to take my guitar and backpack on our laps. When we got to Hahei the girl gave us a quick tour of Hahei saying "Don't blink or you'll miss it". She pointed out to us the place where Steffi was working and then dropped us off at the Holiday Park. We met up with Steffi and headed out to the beach and up the path towards Cathedral Cove. Steffi was glad to see us as she didn't know anyone in the town and was bored to death. However when we told her we wanted to walk towards Cathedral cove straight away her happiness subsided a bit (it was an hour and 20 minutes walking, one way) as she wasn't too fond of walking. We made it to Gemstone Bay after about 15 minutes and decided to rest there a bit and explore. It was a lovely place and amongst the rocks you could find tons of crabs and small fish. I jumped from stone to stone, trying to reach a rock that was a bit off into the sea, and every time I jumped I heard something fall into the water. It took a while before I saw what was causing the sounds; everytime I approached the hiding place of crab, and it saw me coming, it would release its grip on the rock and fall into the water. After this discovery I suddenly noticed crabs everywhere I looked, and I even found some sea urchins as the rocks led me further into sea. After a while I decided it was impolite to let the others wait too long and headed back. As me and Steffi didn't bring our cameras we decided that we'd walk to Cathedral Cove some other day. After some shopping in the local mini-market we made dinner and met up with Steffi at her place. She had a house that could fit a family of 5 all to herself and it all looked really nice. The miniature TV seemed a bit out of place though, though that didn't stop us from staring at it.
The following day we headed to Hot water beach where it was apparently possible to find warm water just by digging a small hole on the beach. It was about 5km south of Hahei so me and Jasper figured we could walk it, but Steffi wanted to try hitch-hiking (we weren't sure if this was because she didn't want to walk or because she wanted to experience hitch-hiking) so we let her make a sign and told her to hold it up for passing cars while we walked. She was a bit too shy to try and stop the cars at first, feeling as though it were something to be embarrassed about, but when she finally did hold up the sign, the first car we came across stopped and picked us up (though they nearly left me behind as the woman behind the wheel drove off before I was in the car).
We arrived at Hot water beach earlier than planned (the hot water didn't appear till 2 hours before low tide) and so to pass the time we just dug a giant hole, thinking that maybe once the time was right hot water would start to flow in there. When after an hour there was still no hot water in our pool we asked some guys who did have hot water what they did to get it, and it turned out that it only works if you dig your hole at the right place. After digging holes all over the beach and finding cold water every time we decided to dig our hole in front of the guys who found hot water as there was definitely hot water there. As we started digging and found hot water however, we found out why it was called "Hot water Beach" and not "Warm water beach". The water was steaming, almost boiling, and digging the hole was painful enough, let alone sit in it! Amazed at how long the others had been sitting in this water we asked them how they could possible hold out for so long and they told us the trick was to find the border of the hot water stream and let in some cold water as well. Indeed, after following their advice the water was a lot more tolerable and cool enough to sit in, but still warm enough to let severe sunburn go by unnoticed. When me and Jasper went into the ocean afterwards a man in front of us suddenly called to us exclaiming that there was a stingray in the water. We quickly made our way to him and as we came close we noticed a large shadow moving over the ocean floor. It was a huge stingray swimming around only 5 meters from shore. Staring at it in amazement we followed it out into the ocean, making sure we didn't get too close to its sting.
On our way back to Hahei we took an exit a bit further up the beach, because that way we didn't have to walk as far to reach the road. Though this was a shorter way to the main road, we soon found out that chances of getting a ride along that road were slim to none. The main trick behind hitch-hiking is standing on a placed where you're visible and where cars can stop without problems (the other main trick is probably to try and avoid looking like a hobo) and this road forced us to walk in the grass and there weren't any places for cars to stop at all. So we just continued to walk, occasionally flashing our sign to passing cars, though I figured there was no way we were going to get picked up. After about 15 minutes of walking with sun boiling the sweat off our backs, I suddenly heard Jasper and Steffi yell and as I turned around I saw a car stopped in the middle of the road and Jasper and Steffi were hurrying towards it. We managed to get a ride after all.
That night we had celebratory pancakes. Like I said, we eat pancakes a lot.
We had booked 2 dives for the following day, but we later found out that there was no ATM in town and we didn't have enough cash on us to pay for them. After unsuccessfully trying to pay for it using our bank cards we asked them if we could change it to just 1 dive. They said that we could do that or, if we wanted, they could drive us to an ATM in between dives and let us pay for the second dive after we got the money. Since we weren't really looking forward to travelling with only a small amount of cash on us, we accepted and suited up for our first dive. This was going to be our first dive without guides or instructors and we had to rely solely on each other for navigation and in case of emergency. We were nervous, really nervous.
When we had our wetsuits on, our air supply set up and our fins and masked packed, we climbed into the boat and sat beside the other divers. When we were all aboard the manager of the dive shop pulled us to the beach with his tractor and launched us into the ocean. He got on the boat and steered us to a small bay in the middle of an island. Me and Jasper did our final checks as the other couple jumped into the water, when we made sure everything was as it should be we got into the water with a backroll off the side (since we had only done the Giant Stride way of getting in the water on our other dives this was a bit scary). The dive went without problems despite me being the navigator (Jasper didn’t have a compass) and we saw some amazing stuff. Lots of fish, a huge starfish, a group of small squid and something that looked like a bit white flower floating in the kelp (we aren’t sure what this was and the others didn’t seem to know either, though the manager thought it might have been a migrating anemone). When we were heading back I was a bit worried as I wasn’t sure how far back we had to go. Eventually I thought we might have gone too far and Jasper thought we weren’t even close to the boat yet, but since our air was running low we decided to just head up and see where the boat was. As we slowly swam up to the surface we found that we were only about 5 meters from the boat; we were quite pleased with ourselves.
Before the next dive the wife of the manager quickly took us to Whitianga and we withdrew enough money for the next week or two.
As we were going for the second dive we were a lot more relaxed, even though we went to a different dive spot. This one was basically just a big rock sticking out of the water and the manager told us that the best marine life would be around that rock.This meant we didn't have to worry about navigating as we could just follow the base of the rock all the way around.
We also hired an underwater camera from the store and were eager to test it. We made a few pictures of each other in silly poses which was easy enough, but when we tried to take pictures of fish we found that photography underwater was devilishly hard and the pictures all came out fuzzy. When we were swimming through the kelp I noticed a large crayfish hiding in a crack in the rock and tried to point it out to Jasper, but he wasn’t paying attention to me and just swam on, heading straight for it. When he got close enough I tapped him on the arm and pointed at the crayfish. He couldn’t see it because there was too much kelp in front of it and wondering what I was pointing at swam a bit closer to push the kelp aside. As he did this he came eye to eye with the huge thing and got the biggest scare of his underwater career. When I tried to take a picture of it, I noticed that the batteries were almost flat and sure enough, 5 seconds later the batteries died. No more fuzzy pictures for us. Other things we saw that are worth mentioning are: a lovely little nudibranch, a big school of fish that swam right past us and a funny anemone that was attached to a leaf of kelp.
When our air started to get a bit low I wondered where we were, I had no idea which side of the rock we were on or if we were even still swimming around the same rock, so I decided to go up and see where the boat was; Jasper quickly followed. When we reached the surface I stared straight at the boat, proving once again that I worry too much. After we got down again (which was a bit harder this time because our tanks were now a lot lighter) we swam for about a minute before we came across the anchor and soon after we decided to call it a day. When we explained what happened to the camera the owners were nice enough to give us a refund.
The plan was to walk to cathedral cove afterwards but since we were quite tired (and because you can apparently get decompression sickness, or bent as it’s commonly called, from doing strenuous exercise after diving) we decided to stay one more day and do it another time. Being too tired to cook properly we made some tortellini (they didn’t have anything nice in the store anyway).
The next day we walked up to Cathedral Cove with Steffi, on the way stopping at a nice little bay called “Stingray Bay”. We probably spent the better half of an hour looking around and climbing over rocks and into sea caves. When we eventually reached Cathedral Cove (which wasn’t all it was cracked up to be) we noticed it was already 4 o’ clock and we only had about an hour and a half to get back to the store before it closed (we didn’t have any food) so we headed back at a faster than usual pace, much to the displeasure of Steffi. We made it back in time and, lazy as we are, bought ourselves some more tortellini as well as some chips and beer to celebrate our last night in Hahei with Steffi.
After dinner we went to Steffi's and played some poker and made fun of Steffi as she had sand fly bites all over her arms (poor girl. . .). I also managed to almost double Jasper’s record with pinball (unfortunately the next day it was gone for some reason). Afterwards we said goodbye to Steffi (again. . . ) and went back to our tent. As we were reaching that fine line between sleep and consciousness we were startled by the sound of a siren. We looked at each other, unsure if we were about to be crushed by a tsunami or burned in a fire, or if it was just an alarm meant for the fire brigade somewhere in the distance. We didn’t hear any screaming people so we figured we’d be alright. A few minutes later the siren stopped and we could finally go to sleep.
We wanted to go to Hamilton the next day, but since this was quite far away we decided to just pick some towns on the way there and see how far we’d get.
We got our first ride within minutes, as we were dragging our sore bodies along the road trying to get to the nearest intersection. The guy (an American living in NZ) wasn’t going to Tairua (our first stop) but promised to take us to the exit towards it, where we’d have a much better shot at getting a ride.
We stood there for about 20 minutes when we suddenly heard a claxon being sounded behind us. It was an Australian couple in a campervan that saw us as they drove by and later decided they’d give us a ride and turned back to pick us up. They were really nice to us and drove us even further than Tairua, as we figured we might make it all the way to Hamilton at this pace. We got our next ride as we were still waving goodbye to the Australians. Jasper flashed our (unfinished) sign at the first car that came past, and sure enough, they stopped for us. They were two kiwi girls who lived in Wangamata (our next stop) and though their car was a bit small and we had to sit with almost all our stuff on our laps we were happy and the girls were nice. Once in Wangamata we stopped at a Subway restaurant to eat lunch and make our next sign; to Waihi. The girls told us we’d have to walk for a while to get to an intersection, which was the best spot for hitching a ride to Waihi. As we were walking along, Jasper wanted to make sure we were still going the right way and asked some people at a petrol station. They laughed and said that Waihi was indeed that way, but that it was a long way to walk. 5 seconds later a car stopped for us and took us to Waihi. This time it was a NZ tennis coach. After talking to him for a while we learned he was in a band and had songs that got airtime on the local radio, he let us listen to some of them and we had to confess that they sounded really good.
When we got to Waihi he told us that there was a huge gold mine almost in the middle of the town and drove us there so we could see for ourselves.
When he dropped us off on a road that would take us to Hamilton we found a nice spot to stand and make our sign, and it wasn’t long before we got our next ride. This time they were two students from Hamilton who went to Auckland for a day to celebrate one of their birthdays. They weren’t going through Hamilton unfortunately but they were going to pass by there and told us they knew a place where there were bound to be many people heading to Hamilton. The ride took about an hour and the car was possibly the smallest one yet, having to carry most of our stuff on our laps again our legs were really starting to get sore, and though the guys were really nice we were glad when we could stretch our legs again.
When we made our way to what seemed like a good spot we realised that we didn’t have any cardboard left to make our sign on. Instead we cut off a part of a previous sign that seemed usable still and wrote our destination on there. When it was finished, the writing was so small that we doubted the people driving by could read it. Since we were standing next to a house Jasper decided to go in and ask if they had any cardboard for us. But though they had a friendly dog and two cuddly cats, there was nobody home and we had to find another solution. Since one of our signs was still unfinished and the letters on it were pretty thin, we decided to try and write over them with really thick letters and pray it was readable. The result looked decent enough, and 2 minutes later we had our ride to Hamilton.
At about 5 o’ Clock, after 7 hours and 5 rides we finally arrived in Hamilton. We weren’t really sure what we were going to do there, and every single one of the rides we had that day exclaimed “Why would you want to go there!?” when we explained to them what our final goal was, but at least it was a big city where they would have cheap internet, an ATM and a decent store.
The guy dropped us off at the YWCA because I’d read in my lonely planet they single and double rooms for 25 dollars a person. When we got to the front door we found it was closed and though there was a bell beside it, we were unsure if we should ring it or not. We decided we were probably supposed to ring and a few seconds after we did a big Maori woman with an unfriendly face opened the door, asking us what we wanted. We asked her if it was possible for us to stay the night, she told us she’d check and slammed the door closed again. After she had us check in and responded quite rudely to a few of Jasper’s questions she showed us our rooms. Mine was on the ground floor and Jasper’s on the first. The rooms looked like prison cells, even though they were big enough, but we were glad to sleep in a normal bed again. After dinner we headed into town and went looking for an internet cafe. It took us a while to find one, but when we did the internet proved to be really cheap. On the way back we were startled by police racing by with their sirens on, apparently chasing some guy in a pimped out car.
The next day we packed all our stuff, made our biggest sign yet and started walking towards the exit for Raglan. As we were walking along a van stopped in front of us (we weren’t sure why, because we weren’t using the sign yet) and the guy asked where we were going. He exclaimed that we were going the wrong way, and that we should just throw our stuff in the car and he’d take us to the right exit. When we got out again, we held up our sign and almost immediately managed to get a ride, from a Maori woman this time.
When we got to the campsite in Raglan and pitched our tent we headed to the lounge room to unwind. Here we met 2 Canadian couples who offered to give us a ride to the beach and one of them claimed he was a decent surfer and promised to show us the basics. The next day we hopped in one of their cars, rented some boards (extra big beginner ones for me and Jasper) and headed out to the beach. The water was pretty rough, with mostly whitewash and as the tide came up the waves followed each other so quickly it was really hard to get back to a good spot. Me, Jasper and Mark (one of the Canadians) were too cheap to rent wetsuits and I expected to freeze my ass off, but the water was actually not cold at all. I managed to stand up and catch some whitewash a few times before we decided to head to the next spot.
This spot didn’t have a beach and the waves crashed on rocks so we beginners decided to skip this dance and let Jeff (the other Canadian) go out on his own. He managed to catch some nice waves even though he was pretty freaked out by the big rocks the waves always seemed to push him towards.
Afterwards me, Jasper, Mark and Rachel headed to town to return our boards and get some kebab (though I thought it was more like a tortilla than a kebab). After the kebab Mark asked us if we had some meat pie yet, we hadn’t so we of course had to get one of those too. After the pie we were all craving ice-cream really bad so we of course had to get some of that as well. Mark and Rachel were pretty full and said that they wouldn’t need any dinner that night. When we told them we were making pancakes they laughed, when we told them we were really making pancakes they looked at us with big eyes asking us how we could eat so much. We told them we always eat that much, they wouldn’t believe we eat an entire loaf of bread with the two of us every single morning. I have to say I’m a bit surprised we aren’t humongous by now.

Let Sleeping Gods Lie

That morning we were anxiously awaiting our transport to the Sleeping God canyon. When it arrived we did a quick round of introductions, our fellow adventurers were a Chilean, an Englishman and an Australian couple. Our guides were Connie, who was also from Chilli, and Craig who was a Kiwi (so he was from NZ, he wasn't a bird or a fruit or anything. Not from what we could see anyways.) but who also lived in Chilli for years.
They drove us to Kauearea park, where they kicked us out of the van at the DOC headquarters warning us that this would be the last toilet break for the day. After a race to the bathrooms and everyone was done and ready to go we drove up to a hiking track. Here they equipped us with a wetsuit, helmet, diaper and a non-matching pair of plastic shoes. They told us that the hike would be pretty tough but to keep in mind that every Meter up also meant another Meter down, this was supposed to boost our morale but since I had a pretty good idea of how far we'd go down I also knew how much we had to walk up (I judged it to be between 200 and 300 Meters).
As we sweated our way up the hill we stopped every 20 minutes to let the Australian girl catch up, by the time she caught her breath the Chilean reached us as well and we continued. By the end of our hike the Chilean was on the verge of collapse. Poor guy.
The first abseil was just a baby one and you could almost walk down it, flat as it was and this made it a lot harder than normal. I was the first to go down, and having abseiled a couple of times before I was pretty confident, but as I would soon find out this confidence was unfounded. As I lowered my body into a position perpendicular to the slope, I started to feed my 8 ring some rope, causing me to go down. I took a few steps as I did this and quickly realised I was walking down faster than I was feeding the rope and was now almost vertical again. I quickly pushed a larger amount of rope up and bounced down, almost losing my footing and scampering to the side a bit to regain my balance. Obviously this was too fast, so I tried to go slower and soon found myself standing upright again. It wasn't until the end of this little hill that I managed to find the middle way and come down in a semi-controlled manner.
After this we reached our second abseil which was a bit higher and a lot steeper, and therefore easier. First Craig went down and hooked up a rope along which Connie lowered the bags we carried with us, after the bags were down the way was clear for us. This one went a lot smoother and I started to regain trust in my abseiling. Me and Jasper were the first ones down and as we were waiting for the others Craig pointed to a small ledge halfway up the slope and told us we could jump off there if we wanted. Being two chickens with a fear of heights we of course accepted immediately and scaled up. I was up first and as I stood there looking down my knees started to shake and the only thing going through my mind was "Oh god, that's high!". It was only 6 meters up but it seemed at least five times as high, and on top of that you had to make sure you jumped as far from the ledge as you could or risk hitting the side. After a second or two I mustered all my courage and leaped off as far as I could, instinctively screaming my lungs out. I was so scared that I climbed up and jumped again.
Afterwards was the big abseil, 70 meters down slippery wet rock with water splashing in your face. The slope wasn't completely vertical though, and there was a part in the middle which was almost like a plateau, after which it dropped straight down again creating a sharp edge with the capability of cutting a rope. Because they didn’t want their expensive ropes to get ruined, and also a bit because they didn't want us to die, they put a plastic sheet over the edge and told us to make sure we passed over the plastic on our way down. Jasper went down first, and I quickly followed. Jaspers rope was on my right side and I had to make sure I didn't step over it, or the lines might get entangled, this meant however that I was forced to go down the left side of the slope which seemed to be a lot trickier. After stumbling once or twice on the slippery rock I got to the plastic sheet and carefully made my way over it. When I made it over I looked up to check that my rope was actually over the plastic and not in a position where it could break and send me plummeting to my death. To my horror I saw that the rope wasn't on the sheet but on the hard sharp rock. As visions of a horrible fall flashed before my eyes I urged myself to go down the line as straight as possible and pray that the rope would hold up long enough for me to get down safely. I slowly and carefully made my way down, and just before the end the wall suddenly became surprisingly slippery causing me to lose my footing. They had warned us before we went down about the ability of the rope to act as a sort of rubber band and that the trick was to let your weight rest on it the entire time. Now, as I regained my footing and tried to lean back into my harness I saw what they had meant. When I rested my full weight onto the rope again it stretched, causing me to lean back further than I had planned and I moved down a few steps to get in a better position. In doing so however I took my weight off the rope slightly and immediately the rope pulled me up, in reflex I hugged the wall and moved my feet up again. This time I tried to put my weight on the rope gradually and again the rope stretched, I managed to somewhat keep my position but the stretch and pull of the rope had me feeling like a yo-yo. As I made my way down the last few meters I was glad to have survived that ordeal and made my way over to Jasper. We were standing there waiting for the others and really started to feel the cold, by the time everyone was down there were 6 people shivering from the cold wetness.
As the guides were pulling down the ropes the Australian guy asked, with a big smile on his face, "Where's the food?". And we, expecting he hid the bag somewhere, started to look around to see where he might have taken it, but when we looked at the faces of Craig and Connie and noticed that they had a serious and slightly shocked look on their face. Turns out, we were supposed to carry the bags down the cliff as well, and not just to the edge of it. So, there were now two bags lying up an impossible to climb 70m cliff wall, one of which contained our lunch for that day and the other contained Connie's bag, and also my bag which contained water and my glasses which I brought in case I lost my contacts. Instead of losing my contacts and having to depend on my glasses, I now lost my glasses and had to hope I didn't lose my contacts.
Slightly disheartened we continued to our next obstacle, the big jump. A 12 meter jump (or abseil if you chose not to jump) down into a small natural pool, with the rock face being at an angle meaning you had to jump away from the wall for at least a meter and a half if you didn't want to crash into the face of the cliff. We all stood there a moment or two, taking in the height of the jump trying to figure out why we paid to do this. Matt, the Englishman, was the first one to push reason into a place where it could do no harm and jump down into the cold water. Next up was the Australian couple and after seeing how close the girl came to hitting the rock it didn't get any easier for us to force ourselves off the cliff. After them came Jasper and then I had to bite the dust. As I made my way down to the point from which everyone jumped I could really see how high it was and how far the cliff stretched out into the pool. I stood there until Craig gave me the okay trying to find the best position from which to jump. I had seen how high it was, but it wasn't until I actually jumped that I realised it and it scared the living hell out of me. I swam over to where the others were sanding and waited for the Chilean to come down, he chose to abseil down and so took a bit longer than everyone else.
The next abseil was called “The widow maker” as 20 people had died there in the last few days. Oh no, wait. I’m thinking of something else. It was actually called “The funnel” and Craig assured us that we’d like it, as he rated it the best one on the mountain. The first part was fairly simple but for the last part you had to descend down the middle of the waterfall. The rocks weren’t as slippery as the ones on the 70m descent, but the difficulty with this one was that it was nearly impossibly to see what was under the water and so just had to pray that wherever you were going to place your foot was a good place for it. Obviously I didn’t pray hard enough as within the first few seconds of abseiling through the roar of the water I extended my foot, expecting to find rock instead finding nothing. It came as a bit of a shock to me as I slowly tilted to one side and toppled over. I quickly got up and did the rest of the descent expecting to step in nothingness every time, but making it down in one piece without further problems.
The last part was an abseil with a surprise (though it wasn’t really a surprise to me as the guy we booked the trip at sort of told us already), the surprise was that halfway through the rope ended and you fell down, gliding gently to the other side in what they called a “Flying fox”. The only thing left after this was a 30 minute walk down the river. As one of my shoes was too small and my feet were killing me and I found this to be the hardest part of the trip by far.
When we got back to Thames the first thing me and Jasper did was go to the local supermarket and buy all sorts of sensible food to still our hunger. This may or may not have included: Chocolate, 2 bags of cookies, 1 big tub of ice cream and 7 hot dogs. Before we rode our bikes back to our Holiday park we quickly downed a bar of chocolate each to silence the beast in our stomachs.
The next day we headed back into town to pick up my glasses, as Connie said she’d go back down the hill to pick up the lost bags and that she’d drop my bag off in Thames. We didn’t do much the rest of the day, except for preparing our trip for the next day.
When we packed up our tent the next day the weather was good, and I was feeling confident about finding a ride to Coromandel town. We quickly made our sign in the kitchen and picked up a nice spot on the side of the road. After about 10 minutes we bagged our first ride, it was a rather eccentric and thoroughly British looking fellow who said he wasn’t going all the way to Coromandel but was willing to take us halfway to Tapu. He dropped us off in a very small town which only had one street, which also happened to be the high-way. It took us a bit longer to get our ride this time (about 20-25 minutes) and wouldn’t you know it, the guy who picked us up was an old Dutchman. Though he’d been living in NZ for the last 50 years or so he still spoke perfect Dutch and was very pleased to learn we were Dutch as well. He even stopped the car for us on top of the hill so we could enjoy the view, and when he dropped us off in Coromandel he told us that if we were going to walk to the Kauri tree they had there we should stop by his house and have some tea.
The next day we walked to the Kauri tree, intending to visit him, but unfortunately couldn’t find his house so we just walked back again.
That evening we spoke to a man from Canada as we were watching an episode from I Shouldn’t Be Alive. He said some friends told him New Zealand was a very good place to cycle around in, but when he got here all he found were hills and roads with no space for cyclers at all. He much preferred Holland.
The next morning we both left and he gave us some pins with the flag of his city and country on ‘em as a small gift, which we thought was quite nice of him.
As we were standing by the exit towards Whitianga with all our stuff and our sign ready, the sky was looking very dark and cloudy and it wouldn’t be long before it dropped its watery load on us. When after about 20 minutes we’d only seen about 4 cars go past we were starting to get worried, but then our troubles were over as a small van stopped for us. It belonged to a young German couple (they were 18 and 19) and the back was filled with a bed and their bags, but we somehow managed to squeeze our bags and ourselves in. In our little shelter against the rain they took us all the way to Whitianga, after we had thanked them we set up our tent in the next Holiday Park.

People are strange

When you're a stranger. . .

(It seems something went horribly wrong last time, hopefully this time it'll work better.)

And so we were in Auckland once more, if only for a few days. We thought we picked a nice hostel but it seemed that in our attempts to steer clear of the party-going crowd we stumbled right into the heart of them. We entered the kitchen on our floor greeted by a man sleeping on the carpet, snoring the loud snore that spoke of a night filled with liquor. The other people in the room were laughing at him quietly, as they watched us enter and nodded their heads in greeting. Our dorm room housed 8 people in rickety bunk beds that swayed back and forth with every movement made. We placed our bags, we have a lot them now, by our beds as best we could and headed off to the store for supplies. 8 Grocery bags later, we made dinner and headed to our favourite internet cafe, mildly disappointed that our regular cashier wasn’t there. When we got out again day had turned to night and we headed back. With the lounge outside our room empty and most of the beds already filled we expected no disturbances and prepared for a good night sleep. About 30 minutes later I was awoken by an intensive argument between two guys who were bragging about how they didn’t really care for rugby, but were still pretty good at it. As the argument went on it was crystal clear that they both cared a great deal about rugby, but for some reason were afraid to admit it. I had plenty of time to wonder about this as the argument dragged on for quite a while and at a volume so high even the people in the reception 4 stories below us must have heard it.

The next day was shop till you drop day, which meant we visited 4 stores before we had to stop at a Subway© to recover. The result: 1 new camera, 2 new books for Jasper and some pegs for our tent. We then set forth on the perilous Journey to Mt. Eden which would take us through the treacherous lands of St. Albert park and Auckland Domain. 1 Hour and many adventures later we ascended the hill unscathed and victoriously. As we pondered our journey and the many perils we faced and enemies we conquered, a bus pulled up and when it opened its doors a flood of Chinese came pouring out, all armed to the teeth with cameras. We set there gazing at them in amazement for a minute or two, when another bus pulled up releasing from its seat covered insides a horde of backpacking tourists (we of course are far superior to this group *hides camera*). As the Chinese tourists made way, the backpackers arranged themselves along the edge of the hill. After they’d all taken the exact same photo, they were immediately herded back into the bus and driven off to the next amazing sight.

After we felt we’d taken in as much of Mt. Eden’s glory as we could possibly handle we walked back taking a few shortcuts on the way (read: running down the hill numerous times). After a few minutes of walking we couldn’t find where we were on the puzzle of maps in my Lonely Planet and I whipped out the trusty compass. Who would bring a compass into the city you ask? Well, I would of course! And so, looking idiots we checked our compass and found that we’d descended the hill on the wrong side and were going completely in the wrong direction. After walking on a few roads that eventually proved to be blocked by natural obstacles (high-ways, shopping malls, etc.) we made it to what was sort of the right direction. But elk nadeel heb z’n voordeel, and so we got to see a lot more of Auckland than we originally planned and we even ran into a store that sold the sim-card I was after!

That evening we met up with Tatjana and Steffi again and went out for a few beers. Well, we met up with Steffi. Tatjana and Zumina (or something like that) were 1.5 hours late and met up with us at the bar.

The bar was nice and quiet and served good beer, and very big portions of fries, unfortunately because it was Monday they also closed very early and we were forced to move to another bar. Eventually Tatjana led us to another bar that had live music. The music was nice, though the singer couldn't seem to remember whole songs, and sometimes just played the first verse twice. It was a bit hard to talk so we just played some card games, one of which involved recognizing cards fast which was made extra difficult due to the fact that all the lighting was red and the red cards were almost impossible to read.

Eventually me, Jasper and Steffi called it a night and said goodbye to Tatjana and Zumina.

The next day was filled with a large amount of nothing that kept us entertained for hours, the evening was filled with the same amount of nothing.

The day after that we took the bus to Thames in the Coromandel peninsula. We arrived at the bus platform at 1:05 (we were supposed to assemble at 1:00 and the bus left at 1:15) and our tardiness seemed to cause a fair bit of annoyance to the bus driver, even though we figured we were still well on time.

After about one and a half hours of driving the bus driver stopped somewhere by the side of the road and announced he had to go back to Bombay (Bombay in New Zealand that is). He didn't give us a reason or anything and we could only hope we'd get to Thames before dinner time. When we finally arrived in Thames it was about 4 PM, 1.5 hours later than planned. We had a Holiday park in mind that was about 3km from Thames and we figured we'd be able to walk that, but just to be sure we asked the people at the i-Center if it was within walking distance. This resulted in the girl behind the desk immediately calling the Park to ask if they could come pick us up, which they could.

Of course it was raining quite heavily when we wanted to pitch our tent, so we were forced to do it in record time. We managed to wipe everything relatively dry, after the tent was up, using our dishcloth so we didn’t have a repeat of last time. The park itself seemed nice enough, it had a pool, a clean kitchen (though their cutlery set consisted of two forks and nothing else) and a pretty sweet lounge with TV and a bookcase full of books. Since I had finished my book (the one that got wet) I was looking for one to replace it with, and I finally settled for War and Peace by Tolstoy, even though the book was huge and weighed a ton.

The next day we headed into town to buy groceries and check out the local stores. I ended up buying a hat, and Jasper bought a netbook, which he got down to a fair price after a splendid display of haggling (I have a wife and three kids to feed!).

We also booked our canyon trip to the sleeping god mountain, which was supposed to be one of the best of New Zealand.

End of a Chapter, and back to the beginning.

Our vibrations were getting nasty. But why? Was there no communication in this car? Had we deteriorated to the level of dumb beasts?

Waves of disappointment washed over me as Tatjana told us that she didn’t want to go with the other girls she found, and offered us a ride to Kaitaia. After a short discussion with Jasper, who wanted to go with her, we accepted. With freedom nearly in my grasp the jail door slammed shut in my face. Barely hiding my disappointment I got in the van and prayed we could get there without troubles.
As we were moving I shut down nearly all systems, content to stare out of the window without thoughts, hopefully avoiding anything from annoying me. On the brink of my consciousness I heard Tatjana announced she was stopping in Kerikeri to get a new tire, though she did not know the way and we had to tell her where to go. Fortunately Jasper took it upon himself to read the directions, and he soon found out she was just as capable of following directions as a deaf chimpanzee, and agitation started to slowly creep into his voice. As he was on the point of screaming her in the face to turn right we arrived at Kerikeri and passed numerous tire shops. Not trying to understand her anymore we just let her drive past, it was obvious she had her sights set on a shop from heaven where the tires are free and made of gold. When we finally got to this shop, it turned out that they didn’t sell tires at all and just did routine checks on cars. Despite already going to a car shop in Paihia she went in and asked for their opinion on the tire, and they had some disturbing news. The tire had to be replaced. As this news obviously shocked Tatjana, she needed a few minutes to fully grasp the situation, which she did by laying over the steering wheel and remaining silent and motionless. As this wasn’t the first time she did this, I wasn’t impressed and neither was Steffi who had obviously experienced this even more than we had. We all continued to stare out of the window until Tatjana woke from her catatonic state and decided she would leave the car there and walk off in search of a new tire. For a short while at least we had some relief and expressed our annoyance to each other.
When she returned I quickly went back to my vegetative state, unwilling to deal with any problems she had undoubtedly found. She then moaned a bit about having to buy a new tire and how expensive it was. I tried to feel sympathy for her, I really did, but I had used up all my sympathy in the days before when she ignored any advice given to her to resolve her situation and she seemed determined to do everything in her power to make life more difficult for herself. So instead, I just looked out of the window and waited for her to do whatever it was she wanted to do. And after being in Kerikeri for about 60 minutes we finally got a new tire on the car and headed towards our next destination. We had decided earlier that we were going to a small town close to Kaitaia, called Ahipara, because there were no Hostels in Kaitaia. Still Tatjana made a fuss about this and insisted we go to Kaitaia anyway and try to find a motel. After explaining to her we didn’t have a money tree with us, and were more than a bit reluctant to blow a ton on staying in a crappy motel, she finally agreed we could go to Ahipara.
2 hours and a lot of ignored directions later we arrived at Ahipara holiday park. After setting up the tent we made dinner and upon seeing the stickers for ice-cream at the reception we joyously rang the bell, the thought of the ice cold sweetness lifting up our spirits. Unfortunately the guy behind the desk told us they didn’t have ice-cream yet, as that was more a thing for the summer, but we could probably buy some ice-cream in the shop close by if we hurried. So we set out immediately, and after about 20 minutes of walking (and waiting for the girls as they pampered every single dog in the neighbourhood, and there were a lot of those) we still didn’t see a shop. We figured we somehow went the wrong way and headed back, and turned into Kaka Street to go to the beach. The water was nice so we took off our shows and played around in it for a while until it went dark and we figured we’d best head back.
Once we got back to the Holiday Park, it was only 9 o’ Clock so we decided to watch TV for a while and sit next to the fireplace which gave off a nice glow. When the guy from the reception stopped by to close the office he asked if we managed to find the shop. When we told him we turned back at the fire station he said we only had to walk about 10 meters further to reach the store. He then went to close the office, and when he came back he was holding 4 cups of ice-cream which he offered to us for free. Shocked by his generosity it took us a few moments before we accepted and thanked him repeatedly. While we ate it we decided we had to give him something in return, and because we were planning to make a huge load of pancakes the next day I suggested we give him some pancakes in return.
The next day we headed out to the northern tip of New Zealand, Cape Reinga, and rented a few sand boards for the Giant dunes they had along the way. After an hour or two of driving we reached a place called Te Paki, where sandy giants resided. We picked up our board (which was actually more like a flexible sled) and took off to climb the dunes. The climb up was gruelling and the sun burned heavy on our heads, but the view alone was reward enough, the border between the land and the sand was absolute with a lush forest transferring into a sandy desert in a matter of meters.
The actual sand boarding itself turned out be a lot trickier than we’d thought it would be, and our attempts to soar down the mountains with the speed of sound were shattered when we couldn’t even reach speeds exceeding 1 mile an hour. Determined to go down in a spectacular way me and Jasper ditched the boards and decided to roll down. The sand was soft enough for it not to hurt and the dunes high enough to make us dizzy beyond belief, achieving a state of nausea rivalling the one after a good night of drinking. Through some kind of miracle we managed to keep our breakfast in our stomachs where it belonged, but decided to lay down and rest for a few minutes nonetheless.
After the storm in my stomach was calmed to a mild breeze, I decided to give the boarding another go smearing as much of the beeswax on the board as I could manage. I climbed up a short way and gave it a try, and incredibly I actually managed to pick up some speed. Rejuvenated by this small victory I set out to conquer the dune once more. Once I reached the top of the hill I asked Jasper if he could make a movie of my descent. He informed me he was just stung by a bee, and if I could hurry it up please. I grabbed my plastic slab and soared down the dune, sand blasting in my face as I managed to reach speeds of up to 2 miles an hour. When I finally reached the bottom I rushed over to aid Jasper who was obviously in pain. He asked me to see if there was still a stinger in his back, and when I looked I saw the biggest stinger I’d ever seen, so big it must have almost pierced him completely. I gripped it with two hands and placed my foot on Jasper’s back. “This might sting a little” I said as I ushered every ounce of my strength to yank the thing out. We quickly patched up the wound before he bled to death, and rushed him back to the car. Steffi had to giggle a little over the whole affair. (Note: this story may have been exaggerated a slight bit).
After waiting for Tatjana to finish her attempts at sand boarding we headed towards Cape Reinga, where the joining of two oceans could be seen in a grand display of foam and whirlpools. At the lighthouse we waited for Tatjana to join us, as she’s always the slowest of us by far. And after she’d been there a few minutes we suggested we should head back if we wanted to get to the store in time. Tatjana said we would probably be too late anyway and should visit one of the smaller (more expensive) shops we saw on the way, and that therefore there was no need to hurry. Still, we wanted to go back and told her so. She seemed to get annoyed with us and insisted we were in too much of a hurry, and we had to relax more. We told her “whatever, we’ll be waiting in the van” and waited for her in the van. After 20 minutes there was still no sign of her and I vowed that if she made us wait for more than 30 minutes I’d never travel with her again. 50 minutes later she finally showed up with some bullshit excuse (pardon my language) that she’d tripped or something. The mood in the van was grim as we rode back, past all the shops we were supposed to stop at for food. When we reached Kaitaia it was around 8:30 and because the big stores were sometimes open till 9, we decided to stop at one and pray it was still open. It wasn’t. It closed at 8, meaning that if a certain person hadn’t made us wait for 50 minutes we’d be here in time to get supplies for pancakes. As it stood now we didn’t have anything, me and Jasper didn’t even have breakfast for the next day. We decided to stop at Kentucky Fried Chicken and had a sloppy weird tasting burger. KFC was not the Fast Food chain of our choice, but beggars can’t be choosers.
When we got back the gate to the Holiday Park was closed (it closed at 9) and the only reason we managed to get in was because the camper driving in front of us also went to the holiday park and made prior arrangements to have the gate opened for them. Then next morning me and jasper had to walk to the store to buy some bread and we also wanted to buy something for the reception guy as thanks for the ice cream. The bread they had was horrible, but we had no other choice, and as a present we bought the guy a tub of ice cream.
Despite my vow to not travel with her anymore, the others still wanted to continue with her as they wanted to visit the Kauri forests arguing that they were hard to reach by bus or through hitch-hiking. So we set out once more and this time she almost managed to topple the van on the windy road. She drove too fast through the corners, too close to the edge of the road and didn’t take the wetness of the road into consideration. So that eventually the car slipped to the left, she corrected to the right, the car slipped to the right and almost toppled. All she could say was “woops” and all we could do was stare at each other as our hearts pounded.
When we got to the forest and the DOC campsite we picked, the girls deemed it unworthy of them staying there even though it had a kitchen, hot showers and toilets. Being so fed up with them we were willing to risk getting stranded there for the sake of being rid of her, and flat out told her that we were staying there and that if she wanted to continue that we’d have no problems with that. But of course they didn’t know where to stay if not there and didn’t want to split the gas two ways, so they stayed as well.
That night we prepared to venture into the forest, flashlights at the ready and raincoats fastened to ward off the rain that kept coming down without end.
I heard many sounds in the forest that night, some belonged to birds, most to my companions and one to the giant snail I accidentally stepped on. Though night may not seem like the best time to venture through a forest, the path was clear enough and the forest had a soothing calmness over it. Though I was ever weary for sounds that might signal a kiwi bird being close by I only heard one cry that may or may not have belonged to one. Still, the trip through the forest was well worth it, with old logs infested with glow worms and the giant Kauri trees even more impressive rising up out of the darkness. Suddenly Steffi whispered to me she spotted something that looked like a red light in the distance, and after looking carefully I spotted a small red light piercing the darkness as if it were the eye of some metallic predator. As we were all standing there looking at the light in silence we noticed an alarm off in the distance, and as we walked further along the path the alarm grew louder. The angry electronic hunting call, belonging to the angry red eye we saw earlier, seemed to warn us to stay away and lure us closer at the same time. Though we knew it was probably nothing we decided to head back along the path lest we get lost.
As I exited our sleeping area the following morning I emerged in waterworld, our bags floating in a sea of rain water and our cooking supplies drowning in a pool of mud. The loss of my book hurt me the most and I spent the rest of the day in mourning. The others decided we were to go to Bayleys beach so I got in the van and attempted to dry my. An hour or so later we arrived at Bayleys beach. As I got out the weather was beautiful and the hot rays of the sun did wonders for my mood. After we’d set up our tent and had some lunch in our stomachs we headed out to the beach, with the lady behind the reception warning us about the dangerous and unpredictable tides and rip currents that claim at least 1 life per year.
When we reached the beach we saw what she meant, the sea was a lot rougher than anything we were used to back in Europe and you only had to wade into the water for a meter or two to feel the strong push and pull of the sea. After playing around in the sea for an hour or two we relaxed on the beach and explored the dunes. The following day Tatjana wanted to go to the library for some free internet, but once we got there it turned out the library closed early on Saturday and we were too late. We spent the rest of the day doing nothing.
The next day we headed to Auckland and only had to deal with the drama once more. While driving past one of the many, many road work sites a small rock hit the windshield and created a small star break. This seemed to be enough for Tatjana to pull over and lay over the steering wheel some more. After about 15 minutes of her and Steffi talking to each other in German we continued to Auckland where they finally dropped us off at our hostel.
We were with two once more.