Death on wheels

First off I’d like to apologize for forgetting this in my last update, but I feel like I should mention it anyhow.
On our last dive, through the Blue MaoMao Archway, we ran into two divers who were taking pictures of the plants and fish. When they spotted us, one of them beckoned us towards them and asked Julia if she could perhaps take a picture of them (in sign language of course), they turned out to be Japanese (I knew this because I’d seen them earlier on the boat). I must have wasted a lot of air, as I couldn’t stop laughing after thinking that even 40 minutes out to sea and 16m under water you couldn’t escape Japanese tourists asking “You take picture?”.

After our dive course we were exhausted and decided to rest up a few days before continuing north. As it turned out one of the German girls we’d been hanging out with was planning on buying a car the next Monday and she offered to give us a ride, as free rides aren’t always found this easily we accepted and stayed a bit longer. Having nothing to do at the camp itself we decided to go into town that Friday. First we went looking for an internet café, despite me marking one on my map we searched for it for half an hour before Jasper decided it was enough and asked someone. The guy couldn’t think of any internet cafés in the neighbourhood but he knew that the library offered internet, so we headed there, but we found the rate of 4$ an hour a bit expensive and continued looking. When we found a proper internet café it turned out the rates there were 5$ an hour.
After sitting there for 3 hours (updating our blogs takes time. . .) we went in search of a bookstore, which I had also marked on my map, and after half an hour of searching we decided to ask someone again. The woman pointed to a shop 10m from where we stood and sure enough, it was a bookstore, though not the one we were looking for. The books there were pretty expensive and they didn’t have the books we wanted (Jasper was looking for the Dark Tower, and I was looking for Catcher in the Rye) so we decided to look for another store. Two stores down the road we found another book store, and here they had the book Jasper wanted so he bought that, they didn’t have Catcher in the Rye so I bought a book by Raymond E. Feist instead. We also stopped by a music shop to look for a guitar, but because I didn’t bring enough money we decided to come back the next day to buy it.
It turned out that that Saturday was Labour Day or something, and that shops were giving out nice discounts and such, and so if I was lucky I might get a nice discount on my guitar. I didn’t get a discount on my guitar, but they did deduce some of the price for my bag and gave me a free set of strings and a tuning flute (they didn’t have a fork unfortunately). On the way back we happened to come across the bookstore we were looking for that first day, seeing all the cheap second hand books I decided to go in and see if maybe they had the book I was after. After entering the shop turned out to be a lot bigger than I thought, and there were so many books in there I felt like I was in heaven. After digging through the Sci-Fi and Fantasy section for about half an hour (Jasper was making it clear that he was a bit bored by then) I picked up the two sequels to the book I’d bought the day before, and headed to the general fiction section. I quickly went to the S section to look for Salinger, but could only find a book by R Salinger, but no Catcher in the Rye. And then, just as I was about to give up and leave I noticed a little book lying on top of the others. A big smile came to my face as I saw the title: “Catcher in the Rye”. And so with a new guitar and more books than was wise we returned back to our tent.

The next day was pancake day again, this time they were a lot better than the first time, and as we were eating our pancakes as we baked them Tatjana (the German girl who was going to get the car) started bugging us about our promise to take her to Abbey caves, so we decided we’d go that very evening after we were done eating. For some reason me and Jasper eat about twice as much here as we ever did back home so it took us quite a while before we finished, and by this time the kitchen was full with people who’d just arrived. There was one German guy who looked exactly like Eric from “that 70s show” (he even laughed the same) called Andreas, a tiny German girl (she was about 1.50m) called Lisa, and an Israeli guy called Aron. When they heard we were planning to go to the caves they asked if they could tag along, we agreed to let them come but warned them that there was water in the caves and that they should bring swimming gear.
By the time we were all ready to go it was about 9:30 PM and quite dark. The walk was actually quite dangerous, as they have no real sidewalks here and we had to walk on the side of the road almost the entire time. Combine that with the fact that the country has many hills, the roads here are quite windy and there are virtually no lights on the side of the road and you can probably understand why I won’t do that a second time. After an hours walk we arrived at the caves and we changed into our swimming gear (except for Lisa, who didn’t want to get wet). Because we didn’t have the water shoes we had last time we went in barefoot and the descent into the cave was a bit more tricky and painful, but we all got down safely. Lisa came down as well because she waned to see the glow-worms without having to step in water. Jasper, being the gentleman he is, stayed behind with Lisa and I headed on with the others, seeing as I was the only one with a decent light and I had to light the way for the others most of the time. This cave wasn’t particularly long or exciting, but it had a good amount of glow-worms in it, so it was exciting enough. Andreas turned out to be just as reckless as me and was soon climbing on and over all sorts of stuff, and I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t follow him every step of the way. When we came to the end about 20 minutes later I was about to turn back when Andreas said he thought he found a way through the boulders and that the cave continued there. After a few minutes of squeezing through tight spaces and climbing over rocks blocking the way we reached the rest of the cave. It was filled with a bit more water than the rest of the cave, it was up to our knees here, and when I waded through them I thought I saw something move under a stone in the water. Andreas saw it as well, and we both thought it was an eel, the others didn’t see it, but I’m still pretty sure it was an eel, though I have no idea how an eel would get to be in the cave or what it survives on. After a few more minutes we reached the end of the cave and emerged in the forest once more. With no real sign of a path through the dense and rocky forest I just yelled Jaspers name a few times to see if he could hear us and was close enough for us to walk to, but he didn’t respond so we decided to walk back through the cave.
Because Aron wasn’t exactly the fastest climber we took a bit longer than expected and by the time we reached Jasper and Lisa they were quite cold and a bit worried. Apparently the wind blowing through the cave sounded like faint shouts coming from deep within the cave, though they realised it was just the wind it unnerved them. Lisa was too cold and tired to go to the second cave, so we just decided to head back and after an hour we reached our campsite, it was around 1:00 AM and Andreas had to get up at 6:30 the next morning for his dive course (the same one we did the week before), I was glad we had all the time of the world.
The next day we did nothing; we just hung out in the lounge and did our laundry.
That Tuesday while Tatjana was off to buy her car we woke up to the sound of rain pouring down on our tent. In all the time we stayed at this campsite it never rained in the morning, except of course for the one day when we want it to be dry. As the rain showed no signs of stopping soon we put on our raincoats and started to break down the tent. Fortunately the owners let us use their barbecue space, which was covered by a roof, to dry and fold up our tent. And, I wouldn’t have expected anything else, as soon as we had packed our tent the rain stopped, the clouds disappeared and the sun shone brightly.
After an hour or two of waiting Tatjana turned up in the van she had bought, it looked nice enough and had 8 seats in it (why she chose to buy a van we still don’t know). It still took about 3 more hours before she had everything packed and ready to go, and before we went on our trip up north she had to stop by the Automobile Association in town. When we were all in the car we were cheerful (Jasper in the front and me and Steffi in the back), when she stalled the car trying to back out we were still cheerful. By the time she got onto the main road and the car felt like a bumper car every time she tried to change a gear we started to get a bit worried. When it turned out that she was not that used to driving a car and almost went down an exit with the lane next to us still filled with cars I had begun to bury myself in the seat, tightening the seatbelt as much as possible (the loose piece of seatbelt we found in the car earlier wasn’t very reassuring either). The hysterical laughter coming from the driver seat along with the frightened shriek form the other passengers every time we almost hit something or someone will haunt me for years to come. Every time me and Jasper exchanged frightened glances I began to doubt whether or not I wanted to go up north with this girl.
Fortunately she got used to the gearbox eventually and the gear changes went a lot smoother. The only other scare was when she tried to back out of a parking place, couldn’t get the car in reverse and nearly crashed into a streetlight (did I mention she doesn’t have any car insurance?), she then stalled the car in the middle of street. After getting back to the holiday park she took another hour or so to pack her remaining stuff and say goodbye to the owners. When we set off, we figured that though she might have some trouble driving through town and crowded streets it would surely get better once we got on the highway (though it’s called a highway I doubt it would rank that high in any other country). We were wrong, for we had not taken into account the immensely hilly and windy road. As we approached the first hill we didn’t suspect a thing, but as we were making our way up the car started to go slower and slower . . . and slower . . . . . and slower until finally she changed into the wrong gear and the car stalled. She quickly put it on hand brake to prevent us from running into the car behind us. After letting the other cars passed, the drivers all with a mixture of amusement and annoyance displayed on their face. As we slowly crept our way up the last part of the hill we realised this was going to be a long and terrifying journey. Steffi grabbed her laptop and provided the soundtrack to our trip, which mainly consisted of songs like “Highway to hell”, “Another one bites the dust”, the theme to the A-team, etc.
After about 2 hours we arrived in Paihia where Tatjana promptly declared she didn’t want to drive anymore because it was too embarrassing, I was more concerned with other matters at this point as I had just found out that the screen of my camera was broken. After Tatjana had cooled down a bit we picked a holiday park to stay and drove there. We didn’t find the park, but we did find a different one and since the owners had only just bought the park they offered us a special deal, we could stay in a cabin with the 4 of us for only 14$ pp per night. The cabins were nice and big and me and Jasper quickly claimed the two beds on the top floor. The mattresses and pillows weren’t too thick or comfortable but it was a lot better than what we were used to in our tent.
The following day we decided to hike to town as there was a track going there which started very close to the park and it stopped quite close to a tourist attraction called the Waitangi Treaty grounds where some kind of treaty between the Maori and English was signed. After walking for 2.5 hours we reached the treaty grounds only to find that cost 20$ to go in. We were prepared to take in some culture that day, but we were not prepared to pay 20$ for it, so we decided to just go into town and head to the store. On the way there we ran into Lisa who we’d left behind in Whangarei.
After doing some extensive shopping (me and Jasper had twice as much as the three girls combined) we ran into a big Maori guy standing outside with some kind of flag, because we were waiting for Lisa and Steffi to come out we asked him about the flag. He told us a whole lot about it, how it was the real flag of New Zealand and how the Maori were oppressed. He was a nice guy, but after his speech we still weren’t sure on what the flag was exactly.
The next day we were going on one of the hiking tracks Lisa picked and was supposed to take about 5 hours. The first part was just along the beach and though it wasn’t really a path it was simple enough to determine where to go. Once we crossed a bridge however the clarity stopped, mainly because our map only showed the path up till that point, and we decided to follow the road as we couldn’t really see a path anywhere. After walking on the road for about half an hour we took a right and entered some suburban neighbourhood, which we figured probably wasn’t the right way. We decided to ask someone who was working in her garden and she didn’t know, but thought that if we followed the road some more we’d probably get there. So we followed the road some more, walking on the edge of the asphalt and getting off the road every time we saw a car. At one point we passed an exit to the right and we took it, hoping it was the right one. Pretty soon however we came across a sign that said “Warning! You are entering 6-shot area! Trespassers will be shot, survivors composted.” So we figured we were probably not heading in the right direction and followed the road some more. When we reached a roadside pub/restaurant we decided to ask again, and again the person we asked wasn’t sure where exactly but thought that if we took the exit just next to the restaurant we’d end up on the track. So we took the exit and entered what seemed to be a forest road, on the sides were some run down caravans which probably belonged to woodcutters there. When we reached the end of the road all we could see were two roads leading up to houses, not knowing what to do next we just decided to see if anyone was home and ask them. Nobody was home.
I did see the road branching off to the north earlier and even though it went the wrong way we decided to climb it (it was pretty steep) and see if it maybe turned the right way later. Once we got to the top there was a beaten up old caravan standing there with a big pickup truck next to it, I could hear movement inside but when I called out nobody answered. After I looked around a bit to see if he was in his improvised garden Jasper spotted a man and called him over. He turned out to be quite friendly (and not the trespasser shooting, shotgun wielding hillbilly I was expecting) but told us he knew of no track and we’d be best off heading back up the road. At this point we just decided to give up and head back, on the way we came through a camp-site and since we were so fed up with walking the dangerous road we asked if they knew a road we could take that wasn’t the main road. Turns out the track we were trying to follow ran along the coast all the way and we were going completely the wrong way since we left the bridge. There was an English girl there who was trying to do the same route we were trying to do but when she heard how difficult it was she decided she’d just walk back with us.
New Zealand is a beautiful country but the infrastructure and walking tracks are complete shite.
Lisa said that it was possible to go into the treaty grounds for free if you showed them your working holiday visa. So we headed there and a friendly Maori woman greeted us, looked at our Visa and let us in for free, with a great deal of annoyance in her voice.
By this point we were too tired to appreciate anything cultural so we raced through all the things that were there. Stopping only when me and Jasper smelled Spekkies (Dutch marshmallows), it turned out to be a flower that was growing there. We promptly decided we’d get a garden with our house later and fill it with these flowers.
That evening Tatjana was very quiet and upon asking what was wrong she said that she was low on cash and that buying the van was a mistake. Not really knowing what to say we all just sat there quietly for what must have been at least 15 minutes, eventually getting up to do the dishes.
I talked to her after the dishes were done and she said she was expecting Steffi to help her pay for the car, even though Steffi told her before she bought it that she wasn’t going to as she would only be there for 3 months. I told her to not think about it too much for now and give it some good thought in the morning.
The next day we headed into town for shopping and because the library had computers with free internet you could use for 30 minutes.
When we were outside the store waiting for Tatjana to come out as well, we suddenly realised that we hadn’t seen her the last 10 minutes we were in there, and when we went in to see if she was still there it turns out she was gone. After standing there not knowing what to do for a few minutes we decided to head to the van and pray it was still there, hopefully with Tatjana in it.
Luckily it was there and Tatjana was in it, but she was seemed pretty down, still not having found an answer to her money problems. She said she wanted to either find a job somewhere or sell the car, to which we didn’t have much to say. Jasper suggested asking the owner of the Holiday Park if he knew where she could get a job, and as he called the cruise operators for the 22hr he asked if they were looking for applicants, and they were. So as we booked the tour he told Tatjana to bring a CV with her so she could give it to the owner of the boat.
The next day the owner of the Park took us to the boat, it was a pretty flat boat with a “Living area” at sea level and the cabins above it.
The first thing on the agenda was a shooting competition, which wasn’t really a competition at all and just consisted of each of us getting 2 shots with a BB-gun at a plastic duck floating behind the boat. We missed both our shots.
We could then fish while we were sailing to our destination, but none of us caught anything. Once we reached our destination and they stopped the boat, one of the crew (one of them was Dutch surprisingly) took our rods, saying “Now we can begin the real fishing”.
Even though it was now “real” fishing nobody caught anything big enough to eat, so dinner consisted of a steak and a sausage with a bunch of vegetables.
After dinner we went kayaking (in the dark), there was a full moon out so it wasn’t as dark as we’d expected. Unfortunately this also meant that the main attracting of the Kayak trip, Fluorescent Algae, was a lot harder to see. I saw them a lot better when I went to bed that night and flushed the toilet while the light was off (it flushes with sea water).
The next morning after our big breakfast we were told to all get ready for snorkelling, which basically meant we had to put on our swimming gear and find a wetsuit (a shorty wetsuit of only 3mm thick, which is small compared to the full suit with two layers of 7mm we had while diving). At first we couldn’t see anything, as the people acted a bit stupid, splashing around and moving as one big group, scaring away all the fish. For this reason me and Jasper separated from the group and swam around one of the crew who was fishing for mussels and sea urchins, and attracted a lot fish. Once we all got so cold we had to get out it was time to cook the mussels, and once we were all dried up we got a taste of sea urchin eggs and a mussel.
Even though neither of us likes sea food we decided to give it a try. Neither of us liked it very much, though the sea urchin wasn’t as bad as the chewy texture of the mussel.
We then headed to one of the islands, which looked like a beautiful tropical island and hung out there for a while.
Afterwards we slowly started to head back to the main land, where the Park owner was waiting to pick us up.
We decided to stay one more day while we decided on where to go next.
The way things are now, me and Jasper are going to Kaitaia and will probably be hitchhiking.
pictures:
http://s713.photobucket.com/albums/ww138/lingonlas/NZ%202%20November/

Since my camera is broken I'll refer you to jasper for more pictures:
sterrenjap.waarbenjij.nu