We woke up relatively early so we could do some reconnaissance on where we should go to hitchhike and what we should do. We asked Murry (the owner of the hostel) what the deal was and he gave us some very good info. He told us the best place was to go to Bethlehem and then try and catch a ride from there. So we took his advice and hopped on a bus to Tauranga then from there to Bethlehem.
We asked the bus driver where we should stand and she gave us some good directions, so we stopped in a cafe and made a sign (my design..took up two sheets, made handstyles...chyea!) and headed off to the street; it's illegal to hitchhike on the highway so we made sure to stay away from there. I set my bag down for a minute to run over and ask the Jewlery store clerk which side of the street we should be on, and when I came back I noticed a bird shit on my bag. Berni was a bit grossed out, but I felt great....I almost wanted to kiss it, I knew it would bring us the best of luck for this journey.
Standing at a stop light maybe wasn't the best idea but we did it anyway. People were passing by and smilling/waving at us and laughing at our sign, it was pretty fun. We stood out there for maybe 15-20mins, this old lady passed by and said "You probably won't get a ride standing there..hehehe" and then BAM, a nice man named George stopped and waved us up to his car. We went up and asked him where he was going, he was going to Waihi, which was in the right direction so we jumped in and we were off... our first pick up from hitchhiking, off to a decent start!
George was a retired truck driver who had never picked up hitchhikers before, but decided we looked nice enough. Once we arrived in Waihi, he took us through the very small town, and we had a short stop at his farm house (very nice place, right by the river) and ate lunch and had tea then we continued on to Whangamata road where he had to turn off to pick up his wife. We hopped out there (in the middle of no where really) and got our sign back out and tried for a second time to get a ride.
The next car that we saw stopped and picked us up. This time it was a very nice fellow named Chris. He said he wa going to Thames, with a short stop in Opoutere, which is about 45 mins - 1 hr from Coromandel Town. So we jumped in and we were off. We chatted with Chris quite a bit, he hosts guests through Couch Surfing and some other free accomodation services. He talked about his travels around Europe (he took a boat there that took 5 weeks when he was 20 in 1969, and hitchhiked around Germany for a while), he enjoys sailing and is quite well traveled. This guy was extremely relaxed, very cool, we talked about environmental issues and he took us to a very nice beach in Opoutere. It was pretty secluded and we stayed there for about an hour, there were some really nice houses in the town before and one house was owned by a New Zealand author and is now used for aspiring writers to stay in and get inspired (yea...wicked awesome).
Chris told us two pretty good stories. The first was about this family he met in Ohio, I believe, while he was traveling around the US. He was interested in the way they farmed, growing up on farms his entire life, so he just stopped by and started to chat with them. Their family name was Ayers (like the rock!), so the daughters main goal in life was to visit Ayers rock in Australia. He stayed with them for a while just learning about US farming. The other story was when he was hitchhiking around Italy a Ferrari picked him up. He was zooming around the some country roads and got stopped by the police, but the guy just paid off the cop and they kept on going.
After a while we arrived in Thames where Chris was started to give us some pointers and show some concern for us, which I thought was nice. We told him not to worry and that we'd be fine, haha, felt like I was talking to my grandfather or something. He was extremely nice though, I'm glad he picked us up. We arrived in Thames at about 5pm which was perfect because there were a lot of cars going from Thames to Coromandel Town at that time (for work and such)....so we only had to wait a few minutes before Graham picked us up.
We had a nice chat with him and found out that he has lived all over the North Island doing various jobs. He was in the military for a while working as an ammunition specialist, and he was also a chemical safety inspector at schools around the North Island. He gave us some tips about hitchhiking, mainly that doing it as a "couple" is probably the easiest and safest way, but it's also alright if it's two girls together. The hardest way to hitchhike is a single guy or two guys, I guess because people will just think you're going to murder them?
He told us that when he see's girls hitchhiking alone he picks them up everytime and gives them a stern talking to. Telling them how dangerous it is to do alone and he said the talk gets longer the younger they are, this is because Graham has FIVE daughters (they've all left home now though). He also had a great attitude towards life, pretty much JUST DO IT and follow your dreams no matter what. Really nice guy. He also reminded us to book a hostel while we were on our way, which was lucky because there were only 2 beds left in the whole town.
The drive along the coast from Thames to Coromandel Town was quite nice, you could see fish jumping up and feeding in the water. Pretty much standard North Island beauty, hills and coast line. We arrived in Coromandel Town at around 6pm and settled into our room, Graham was nice enough to drop us off right outside our hostel. Got some beer and chips to relax and decided to get takeaway for dinner (some dodgy chicken patty with fries, but it worked). Coromandel Town is nice, very relaxed place, but it is kind of old people-ish. However, I heard from someone else that the other hostel (Lions Den) was much better and more lively, but it was nice to have a relaxing night after a day of traveling.
First time hitchhiking was a great success, maybe I'll do it some more =P.
Peace & Love
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