I woke up the next morning pretty excited for the adventurous days ahead. The plan was to go up north to Bay of Islands and Cape Reinga for a few days then they would drop me back off in Auckland on their way back south. They are traveling through NZ for 5 weeks I believe, and doing some fruit picking jobs and things along the way. So, I set off in the morning to buy a phone and a new camera (HA!), got back in and packed my day bag for a 4 day excursion to the beautiful north.
We had originally planned to leave around noon-1pm, but whoever told the girls the bus would only take 30-45 mins was grossly mistaken. Anyway, I met up with them around 4pm, I met Lisa for the first time that day (Sidenote: she was also quite attractive...I definitely lucked out in that department), but before that I just hung around and watched movies. It was worse for them because they had to wait so long for the bus AND to get the camper (first bad omen for the camper). Either way...after stopping for some groceries, they were both pleasantly surprised that I didn't mind eating vegetarian for the duration of the trip (very nice alternative to what I had previously been eating)..we set off..me a 6' black Canadian gentleman and two 5' nothing blond blue eyed German girls..I think you could make a show about this...
The drive up north was SPECTACULAR, everywhere you looked was like a painting, really can't describe it...just take my word for it; I had some pictures on my new camera...but....yea, you'll hear more about that further down.
On the first day they drove (I can't drive manual...or on the left side..) until it got dark then we stopped at an information center to have dinner and use the sinks and things. Then we continued on for a little while and they explained how you can't drive at night in Australia (where they just spent the past few months) because of the Kangaroos. They also mentioned how they found that out first hand TWICE..scary stuff. So I told them about how my sister almost hit a deer...then one jumped right into the window covering everyone in the back seat in blood...good night time story swapping. We stopped at another information center which was right by the water, with some nice views of islands (again...I had some pictures of this...) where we could park over night and sleep. First time sleeping in a camper, and it was the best sleep I had since arriving, which might have been because I spent the previous night in a broken bed, but still GREAT SLEEP. Before getting to the i-SITE, we went looking for the Friedensreich Hundertwasser public toilets in Kawakawa. He is a German designer, I didn't know anything about him or the toilets but it was pretty sweet, and it was late at night so we could go in and take pictures and stuff.
We woke up to bus loads of people thronging about, had some breakfast (cereal + fruit + soy milk and bread crackers + cheese + jam) and hit up the i-SITE to figure out what we should be doing on the way. They kept asking me what I wanted to do, but I had no idea, I was basically just along for the adventure. We went through so many little towns I can't remember all the names...but I know we went through Kerikeri, Kawakawa, Kaitaia and Paihia and visited Rewa Village (a Maori village), Haruru Falls, and Sandboarded on the dunes (WOOOOOW, this was great and also where I broke my SECOND camera.. I have a great picture of the wipe out that did the job). We went to the Bay of Islands and Cape Reigna the views during the drive and at the lighthouse at Cape Reigna were LEGEN....wait for it.....DARY..again I don't really have much to SAY about the places, but they were so beautiful you just have to see the pics for yourselves. I got the girls to take some pictures of me though so hopefully I can get those at some point and show off my mean handstand skills.
We stopped at a camper bay that had a few people in tents and others in campers and decided to have dinner and some showers and stay there over night. After trying to swim in the bay (the name was so long and it escapes me at the moment) and discovering it was filled with pink/blue jelly fish that had just arrived that morning; I had my first shower under the stars which was a really amazing experience and not as cold as you'd think. That night I think we had veges + rice + chickpeas.. and then it was off to bed to get ready for another day of adventure in the morning.
Peace & Love
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment