Day 7 - The Morning After

When I woke up on new Years Day, i definitely felt a bit rough. The sunlight was blinding, my mouth felt like sandpaper, and I had the grand union railroad's entire construction team working in my head. I staggered off to the toilet and then headed to the kitchen for a drink. I then found that sometime the previous evening I had misplaced my glasses, and remembered handing them to 'Jesus'. I decided to have a shower (I stunk) before heading back to the house of the party to find my glasses. I went over there and I searched everywhere I could remember going before admitting defeat and leaving the guy my phone number to get in touch if he found them. I then headed back to the hostel and decided to go to relax on the beach for a while. I took a short swim, but I still didn't feel quite right so I decided to head to the hostel's pool and hot spa, instead. I relaxed for at least an hour before I got a gall from the guy to tell me that he had found a pair of glasses. I headed over straight away, and there they were. Jesus must have put them on the edge of the guy's decking, out of the way. I headed back to the hostel and crashed in the TV lounge for a while, swam in the pool some more and just lazed about for the rest of the day, before getting my packing done for the next day. I went to bed quite early, to hopefully feel better the next day.

Day 6 - New Years' Eve

New Years' Eve dawned bright and early, and the weather was wonderful. I, however, did not, and I wasn't out of bed until at least lunchtime. I had a pretty lazy day, saving my energy for the night to come. I got invited to a house party at the house of one of the guys at the hostel's uncle, who had a big house on the waterfront. I headed to the liquor store (at the end of the street) and picked up a 6-pack of beers and a 6-pack of vodka and mixer drinks, and some chips (crisps). I had a pretty lazy afternoon and when the party started at the bar, a few of us went in for a couple of drinks until the rest (girls) were ready. I had my kilt on, of course. When we were all pretty much ready, one of the bouncers at the bar came over and told us to get moving, because the police were coming to inspect, and anyone with alcohol on the hostel premises who weren't in the bar could have it confiscated. We all assembled in a mad dash over to the house and the party began in earnest. A group of us all sat round playing drinking games, and we started off with categories, where someone says a category and the rest have to give an example. When someone says what the person who gave the category was thinking, the categorizer would say it was between that person and someone else. Everyone else would then bet on who they thought was right, and the correct person would be revealed. The people who bet wrong would then drink. the other game was just plain ridiculous. Everyone would put imaginary goggle on using their hands, and they would be passed using hand gestures and sound effects, and everyone who messes up would have to drink. It all got pretty messy the more drunk everyone got. We then just sat and talked about rubbish for the rest of the time, until the fireworks started going off. A huge crowd of us then stood at the edge of the property, next to the pavement, and shouted happy new year to anyone who passed. A few of us then erupted into a raucous chorus of Auld Lang Syne. Two of the kiwi guys also erupted into their national anthem. After that I was feeling pretty rough, and I decided to go for a lay down on the back of the guy's ute (pick-up truck). I ended up face down, vomiting over the side, and this was the position I was in when some random woman, whose face I didn't ever see (i was a bit preoccupied), jumped up on the ute and started rubbing my back. She then started yelling to her friend 'Vicky, look, I'm being Jesus!' She kept shouting. 'Here, Vicky, this guy's got a kilt on! And (she lifts up kilt) very shiny boxers." It was shortly after she left that I blacked out for about an hour, and woke up still on the ute. I then managed (miraculously0 to make it back to the hostel, and to bed.

Day 5 - Cape Reinga - Scotch Mist

The day of the Cape Reinga day trip dawned, and the weather seemed to be a good metaphor of how i was feeling after the previous night. It was grey and drizzly with fog. The first place we visited was a huge great big Kauri Tree in a natural Kauri forest. This was somewhere that the queen had visited, and they had built a wooden walkway especially for her visit. We took a short walk through the forest before heading back to the bus. The next stop was the town of Taipa, which is believed to be the first Maori landing point. We stopped there to pick up some lunch from the bakery, and to use the toilets, which were bogging! The doors didn't lock properly, they stunk and they were outside.We then headed straight onwards to Cape Reinga, which is believed to be the departure point for souls as they leave New Zealand and head towards the ancient lands of Hawaiki. When we arrived, we found that the fog had closed in completely, and we could only just se the lighthouse. We couldn't see the meeting of the sea, or the ancient tree form whose branches the souls apparently leap. I took a quick picture in my kilt, but was pretty disappointed with the lack of view. We clambered back aboard the bus, a bit downhearted, and our driver, Dice, told us not to worry, because the sand boarding would be fast and fun. To get to the Te Paki giant sand dunes we had to pass through the Te Paki stream, which was quite a bumpy ride. We stopped the bus right in the middle of the stream, on a sand bank, and we disembarked to try our hand at sand boarding. First we had some safety instructions, and we were warned not to dig our feet in if the sand was too hard packed by the rain, but it turned out to be quite soft, which made it easier to go slower, and harder to get up the sand dune. It was awful climbing up, as every few steps forward brought another step or two of sliding back. We reached the top and proceeded to throw ourselves down the dune on body boards. it was great, fast fun. On my first turn i lost grip of the board and stopped at the bottom of the slope by means of my face. It didn't help that I had been trying not to hit the idiot who was standing in my way. I got up, unscathed but with a faceful of sand, and headed back up the dune to try again. The next time I managed to hold on, and I made it all the way into the stream. Great success. That was me for sand boarding, however, as I couldn't quite summon the energy to try to get back up the dune again. After everyone had given up on the sand boarding, we got back on the bus and headed to the beach itself. We arrived and took a short drive along before stopping again for a photo op. A few of us (myself included) decided to go for a swim, and we took of into the Tasman Sea and jumped waves for a few minutwes. The water was cool and refreshing, and the waves were a great height for jumping. A short while later we were really motoring along the beach when the bus driver pointed out an arch of rock jutting out in the Tasman. 'See that', he announced, 'that's the real hole in the rock. At low tide, I can drive you through it. The one at Cape Brett is just a fiberglass copy, so the boats don't get scratched.' I should now explain to you that it is typical kiwi humor to make fun of tourists by telling them any old rubbish to see how much they believe. He also told us why Ninety Mile Beach, which is not 90 miles long, is called Ninety Mile Beach. There are two stories. The first is that the Aussies have an 80-mile beach. The second is that a ranch owner at Cape Reinga used to drive his bullocks to market down the length of the beach. he knew that the bullocks could travel 30 miles a day, and it took 3 days to cover the beach, so 90 mile beach. He forgot that bullocks walk slower on sand. I don't know which, if either, is true, so believe what you want. We kept on going down the beach, and eventually we pulled alongside one of the other companies' buses. We started to pull ahead, and they started to pull back, and we ended up drag racing. It was a bit futile, since both buses were the same model and engine capacity, but our driver used dirty tactics, and turned the air-con off to get 2 extra horsepower. We pulled ahead, and won the race. After we had left the beach we drove onward for another 20 minutes or so before reaching the Ancient Kauri Kingdom, a large gift shop which sells many different objects made from ancient kauri trees which have been found perfectly preserved in a swamp with the oldest workable timber ever found. I took a look around and found the prices to be extortionate, and although i was tempted to buy an egg made from the wood for $15, i decided not to bother. The last stop on the way home was at the Mangonui fish shop, which is supposedly world famous. Well, I don't know about world famous, but at $7 for a fish supper, it was certainly cheap. We spent about half an hour there before we headed back to Paihia. On my return I decided to try to get some accommodation for new years and stay in Paihia, and i found a bed for the night of the 1st in the YHA, so all I would have to do is pull an all-nighter over new years eve, something which I felt was doable. I then headed back to the base to phone Auckland and tell them the good news, when the receptionist at base told me that there was plenty of room there for all of the New Year period, because the last Kiwi bus had arrived with 27 less people than they had saved beds for. Result! I headed back to the YHA and quickly cancelled my booking. I then headed to the hostel pool for a little while. after this I decided that I needed to get some shopping, and I was going to walk along the bay to the Woolworth supermarket (no relation to the defunct British store) which was down by Waitangi, but I saw the bus going towards the treaty grounds for the night show. I decided to try to blag a lift, and it worked! The driver dropped me off right on  the end of the supermarket's street. I managed to get quite a few good deals, such as 2 packs of sausages for $6, and a whole 700g block of un-iced Christmas cake for $2! I then took the walk back to the hostel and , felling shattered from the long day and the long walk, I had an early night.

Day 4 - Ladies' Night

When I woke up on day 4, still on the boat, the first thing I did was go for a swim before breakfast. It still wasn't cold, but it really woke me up. Breakfast was a bowl of the traditional kiwi dish - porridge (okay, so it's Scottish, but it was still good). Shortly after, we anchored in another bay and we went snorkeling, to collect urchins with which to make the traditional Japanese sushi dish, uni (oo-knee). We then moved to another bay, near Robertson island, and we took a trip over to the beach, a few of us (including myself) kayaked over, and the rest took the tender across. We had a good few hours on the beach, and took a walk to the crest of one of the island hills and we got 360° views of the bay of islands. We then headed back towards Paihia, and I played pool on the boat with the American couple's two sons. It was great fun, because every time you got a shot lined up, the balls moved about the table from the rocking of the boat. Shortly before we were due to arrive in Paihia, we were called to the back of the boat to try some uni. This is prepared by sticking a knife straight into a live sea urchin, splitting it in two and scooping out the innards. The egg sacks are then collected and these are uni. it's actually not as gross as it sounds, and it don't taste too bad, either. It's slightly salty and creamy. Shortly after that, we arrived back in Paihia and we were dropped off on the wharf by the tender. I headed off to the base hostel to check in and pick up my bags. as soon as I was moved in, I jumped in what is claimed to be the smallest hostel pool in the world, certainly in New Zealand. Saying that, there was still room to swim. I had the hostel's barbecue for tea, because i couldn't be bothered cooking. I found out that it was going to be the hostel's ladies' night, and all the men had to dress as women. I thought 'why not?', and I decided to wear my kilt as a skirt, with my pink shirt tied to make a crop top. I stuffed it with my kilt socks, but I could have done with bigger boobs. When I arrived in the bar, I found out that there a was a 'Miss Pipi Patch' competition, with the prize being a free sky dive. I decided to go for it, and if I won, I would actually give skydiving a go. Thankfully, I didn't win, I got beaten by another guy in a dress. I got knocked out in the first round, limbo dancing. I was glad I didn't get to the final, as there were two blokes left, and it was a snog off between them. after the competition had finished, I headed to bed, to get a good night's sleep before the Cape Reinga day trip the next day. 

Day 3 - Auckland to Pahia - The boat that rocked

On day 3 I luckily woke up before my recently acquired alarm clock. especially lucky because I had discovered that it had somehow gone from being on time to 15 minutes late in the space of one night. I headed downstairs, checked out, had some toast and quickly packed an overnight bag. I then went down to wait for the bus to Paihia. The bus arrived shortly after, and we headed for our first stop of the day, the 'Top of the Dome' cafe. This was a quaint little diner, situated upon a hilltop and with a small selection of puzzles to keep customers occupied. We waited for a while, as Scoobs, the driver, had to head back the the last town we had passed to pick up some more folk. We then headed further north, stopping shortly in Whangarei. We got into Paihia for lunchtime, and so I had some time to kill before I was due to embark on a cruise on board the Rock boat cruise. I popped over to base Pipi Patch, which was to be my accomodation for the following night, and I made use of their luggage storage room to get rid of the heaviest of my bags. I then spent $10 on a ferry ticket across to Russell, which is often misquoted as being the 'first capital of New Zealand' (i.e. under British rule). It is not, in fact, that honour going to a small town outside of Russell known as Okiato, which was capital until 1841 and was called Russell until 1841, until the name was transferred to Kororareka, modern day Russell. However, as a favored stopping point for some long distance sailors, Russell did become known as the 'hellhole of the pacific', a name which no longer applies, and today it is known as 'Romantic Russell'. I didn't really find much to interest myself in Russell, although I did find it to be very similar to Devonport. I had some fish and chips, which weren't really anything to blog about, and I took the ferry back over to Paihia. I wandered about the town center for a while, and eventually it was time to board the tender for 'the Rock'. Well, it wasn't actually their tender, whose engine was having a break for Christmas, but a scuba diving company'y rib, onto which 19 people were crammed, all of us leaning over the side and holding on for dear life. We reached 'the Rock' and were helped aboard by John, the captain. Whilst the rest of the guests were collected, we met the rest of the crew, Mink, Ben, Olten and Lizzy. We were then shown to our rooms before assembling back downstairs for the shooting competition. This was a 'duck shoot', the target being Matilda, the plastic Aussie duck who was riding in the boat's wake. I hit her on the first go, and got through to the second round. I then shot her again, and won a free drink. When we arrived at our anchoring point shortly after, we got ready for a spot of fishing. it took a while for the fish to start to bite, but then we were catching Snapper thick and fast, and sadly all too small, so they had to be thrown back. We then had a barbecue which was gorgeous, with a huge range of salads with steak and sausages. I sat with a nice American family who I had gotten talking to, and we got put into a group together for the night kayaking. Happily, it also happened to be the first group going out, and at about 9pm, when it was pitch black, we all got our life jackets on and mounted out Kayaks. Although I didn't see the famed luminescence, the view of the constellations out there was breathtaking. You could see everything so clearly, even the great Magellanic cloud was visible. After we had finished kayaking, and the other groups started to go out, a few of us jumped in for a swim. I was surprised at the temperature of the water, which wasn't exactly warm, but didn't feel cold either. It was so relaxing, and after that, I got a great night's sleep.