Still Alive!

And so the two left Auckland and it's big city people behind, and headed for the quieter Northland. They took their heavy packs and jumped on the bus to the small town of Waipu.
The trip was going to take them about 2 hours and 15 minutes, and despite the driver having parkinsons disease they were quite sure they were going to get there in one piece. The drive took them through the heavily populated outskirts of Auckland into a country riddled with hills and very dense forests. They realised that if this was going to keep up it would be very hard to camp in the wild indeed. But they didn't let such thoughts trouble them and just enjoyed the ride and the amazing views it offered.
After a few stops they made it to Waipu in one piece, the busdriver kicked them out in a small sleepy town and took off again. Standing there collecting their thoughts for a few moments the two looked around to see anything that might appear on their map, but couldn't find anything and eventually they just decided to take the road north. The heavy packs forced them to walk rather slowly and complain about the weight every few moments but soon they found a road name that was also listed on their map, and found they were headed in the right direction and only had 5 km left to walk. After about half an hour when they reached a fork in the road, they were going to take the smaller quieter road, an old farmer hollered at them. They said hi to the old man and waited the five minutes it took the man to walk towards them. The man asked if they were going to the campsite and if so that they still had quite a walk ahead of them, if they took the big road however they might get lucky and catch a ride. The two replied that they intended to walk as a training of sort. After some more small talk the old man said goodbye and bade them to be careful of their belongings (especially when around people who are not the same colour as us). After 10 more minutes jasper accidentally got the two their first ride, he waved at a man pulling out of a driveway and the man asked where the two were headed, he then said he was going past there and that he could give them a ride. Ofcourse the two would be fools to ignore such an offer and gladly took it.

They arrived at an almost deserted campsite with a jolly old site-keeper, they paid for 2 nights and went to find a nice place for their tent. Setting up the tent went remarkebly well (though it wasn't perfect) and they soon had a place to sleep. By then it had become dinner time and the two were hungry, so it was time to test their cooking equipment (3 pans and 1 gas stove). The menu for that night consisted of spaghetti and sauce from the day before. Miraculously they accidentally stumbled upon an old recipe for glue, namely spaghetti and water. Despite some of the spaghetti being glued to the pan, and the box that held their old sauce being slightly leaky, dinner tasted great.
Soon after, they went to bed and tried to sleep. I say tried because neither of them was really used to sleeping on thin foam matts. the following morning they got woken up by the sound of rain against their tent, not wanting to get wet the two stayed in bed a bit longer and dozed off every now and then. Eventually the rain cleared and the weather was great again. After eating their last bread the two headed back to waipu to buy some more. They tried hitchhiking for a few minutes but soon gave up and just walked, it was a lot easier without those heavy packs anyway.
By the time they got back to their tent, 3 hours later, some clouds had gather over them and it soon started to drizzle. After sitting in the tent for a while I decided to get out and explore the area a bit, jasper stayed in the tent. I ran into a couple of hares that lived just outside the campsite and I almost stepped on a pheasant, when I got back jasper was asleep so I walked around some more.
After a while the weather cleared up again and the sun was burning on their skin. Having no sunblock, aftersun or any other materials to fend off the sun, the two decided to sunbathe for a while. By the time the clouds starting getting in front of the sun again it was diner time, they were going to make potatoes, carrots and frankfurters. They boiled the potatoes and carrots in one pan to save some gas, and when they found out the frankfurters only needed to be heated in water it didn't require any second thought to chuck them in there as well. Despite their distinct lack of cooking talent the meal tasted fine.
Afterwards they went for a walk on the beach (it was a nudist beach, but we didn't see any nudists there). It was a moonless night and there was an amazing number of stars in the sky, they got back before it got too dark to see (they forgot to bring a torch).

The next day they packed their tent and stuffed their bags, and with their homemade sign saying "Whangarei" they set out to find a ride. After only 15 minutes a nice guy picked them up and drove them to Whangarei, 30 minutes further north. He dropped them off at the i-Centre at the south end of town, here they called the hostel they had their eyes on, to see if there was any room for that night. They had plenty of room, but they were on the other end of town. When the lady on the phone asked if they knew how to get there and if they came by car she couldn't help but laugh when they said they were on foot, saying "Well, I hope you can get here before dark".
When they went inside the i-Centre for more detailed directions they found that it was a 10-15km walk to there, which was quite a lot more thn the 7km they thought it was.
They decided to take a bus to the centre of town to save them some time and so they could buy some more supplies. Afterwards they set out on their walk, after about 30 minutes they stpped somewhere for a short rest as the bags were getting heavier and heavier by the minute. Soon after they continued they took a road up into the hills, Jasper suggested they hitched a ride (he wasn't too happy with all the walking at all) but because the sidewalke was on the wrong side of the road they had no other choice but to walk. After a while the sidewalk moved to the other side of the road and just as they crossed the road a car pulled out of a driveway, it stopped when it saw the two and asked where they were going. "Abbey caves? (our hostel was next to there) you have quite a walk ahead of you then. . . You know what, I can take you there if you want." It took a moment before the two realised what the man said, and when they did they threw their bags in the truck with joy. The man (and his 6 year old son in the backseat) actually need to go in the other direction, but since the man had done some backpacking himself he knew how heavy the bags were and was glad to help.
Jasper went a bit pale when he saw how much they would have had to walk if the man hadn't offered them a lift, exclaiming "I would have been quite cranky after walking all that!".
When they reached the caves they could offer nothing in return but a big "Thanks!" and a handshake, and they waved goodbye to the man and his son.
They then descended a small mountain road to a small valley which housed the Little Earth Lodge, their hostel, and a building had never looked that good before.

here are some new pictures:
http://s713.photobucket.com/albums/ww138/lingonlas/NZ%2015%20Oktober/

Jasper will probably post some of his on his blog soon.
(sterrenjap.waarbenjij.nu)

(the keyboard here is annoying to type with, so ingore any missing letters)