Before I left NZ for
good, I spent some time in an area I had missed so far but was
desperate to see – the Coromandel Peninsula. A long, narrow strip
of land about an hour east of Auckland, the Coromandel is incredibly
popular amongst Kiwis and tourists alike, and it's easy to see why
(without trying to sound too much like Judith Chalmers). The weather
in summer is breezy and warm on the coasts, and the beaches are
nothing short of spectacular. Unfortunately, this meant that it was pretty packed around the time I was headed there, but I didn't find
it too horrendous.
I mapped my journey out
over about seven days: Auckland - Coromandel Town – Whitianga –
Thames – Auckland. This as mainly dicatated by availability of
public transport being a bit few & far between in NZ.
I stayed at a great
hostel in Coromandel Town, 'The Lion's Den', and happened to be there
on the day of the Keltic Fair, which was a stroke of luck. I checked
into the 'Zebra Room', was greeted by the effervescent, barefoot and
markedly hippy Edy and slapped on some suncream to spend the
remainder of the afternoon at the Fair. It was a bit like being at a
giant version of a primary school summer fete; I had a marvellous
time, sampling various foods (of course), inspecting crafts stalls,
listening to pipe and rock bands, and watching a very stoned lady
dance by herself in the middle of the audience area for a Pink Floyd
tribute band. I have found that in NZ, more than anywhere else, it
feels comfortable and natural to spend time alone, and I noticed a
fair few people sitting by themselves on the grass, shoes off,
listening to the bands with a swaying and content appreciation.
The town itself is
tiny, but gorgeous, with tiny little shops and cafes lining
diminutive streets. I spent the following day visiting the famous
Driving Creek railway (built by another Kiwi eccentric, a potter who
originally constructed the mini railway to excavate clay for his pots
and eventually ended up building one of the Coromandel's busiest
tourist attractions. Fortunately for him, this enterprise paid the
enormous bills he owed the bank for the land in the first place). I
had a bite to eat in the cafe, chased down by a dandelion latte,
which is probably not going to take off in Britain any time soon.
I walked the food off
doing the Harray loop track around the town, and managed to get lost
halfway down due to lack of signage and generally retarded sense of
direction. I got out once it started to rain, so I suppose I must be
thankful for small mercies.
That night, I met a
Dutch/Australian, also called Laura, who was planning on heading the
same way as me and kindly offered to give me a lift to Whitianga and
my next hostel. She popped out for dinner while I made myself a
traditional fortifying meal of tuna, pasta and sweetcorn, and a
yoghurt from the bargain bin in the local 4 Square. The glamorous
eating habits of the impoverished backpacker.
I also had a fairly
personal task to attend to that night, in the form of writing a piece
for my Grandfather's funeral, in lieu of my appearance. Fortunately,
The Lion's Den wasn't at full occupancy, and those who were staying
seemed to have gone out for the night, so I settled myself at a
covered, outdoor table under a tangled construction of fairy lights, cloth and ivy, and began to write.
Maybe it was something
about the quiet, gentle atmosphere of the place, or just the way I
was feeling, but either way, I managed to start typing and just keep
going.
The next morning, Laura
and I grabbed some coffee and got into her rental car for the
beautiful hour-long drive to Whitianga. We wound around cliffs,
alongside beaches, all the while talking about our travels so far and
Laura's upcoming citizenship application to Australia. Whitianga was
windy, and not too much to write home about, tempted as we were by
the banana boats. We decided to take a walk to Cathedral Cove, which
was around the corner, off Haihei Beach. This involved a small uphill
struggle towards the entrance to the footpath, and a pleasant, mostly
flat wander along a sandy path with some meanderings towards little
inlets along the cove, following the slovenly pace of the many other
tourists who had decided to descend that day. The 'cathedral' archway
at cove was beautiful, and will probably collapse sooner rather than
later, due to structural instability and natural erosion. With this
in mind, I quickened my pace through the middle of the archway and
didn't hang about for too many photos. We watched a man standing in
the freezing waves dive into each big wave that came along, without
actually going anywhere, then decided after a few photos that we'd
had enough entertainment and headed back. From here, things took a
downturn. Which is good, because it makes the blog so much more
entertaining.
Cathedral Cove
After a quick
supermarket trip to replenish my meagre food supplies, Laura kindly
dropped me off at my hostel in Whenuakite. It was the only place
available when I was looking, and accommodation in the Whitianga area
appeared to be either cheap and scarce, or horrendously expensive and
available. Whenuakite is about 25k out of Whitianga, but it's near
Hot Water Beach and is on the way to Thames, which was my next
destination, so it would have to do.
We pulled into a
slightly grim family campground setting off of the main road, and
walked to the reception to check me in. Laura needed the toilet, so I
asked the receptionist if she could quickly nip inside and use it.
She regarded me with nothing less than the snootiest disdain.
'Is she paying for a
room here tonight too?'
I was taken slightly
aback. Here I was, a customer, checking in for two nights at a not
altogether reasonable price, and my companion was being refused the
use of the bathroom, a request no other receptionist would bat an eyelid at.
'Well... she can have
my use of the bathroom if it's that much of a problem.' I replied. 'I
don't need to go right now.'
With much huffing, the
receptionist allowed Laura to relieve herself in the appropriate
receptacle and I continued to check in. She gave me a hot water
token for the showers for five minutes of hot water. If I
wanted more, I had to pay. Then I saw the room........
It's difficult to
describe, and I'm not altogether sure I have a photo of it. It was
smaller than the size of my box room at home, with four bunks and a
small window. On the left side, the bottom bunk's bottom half was
wedged underneath the top bunk, with about a six inch gap between top
and bottom bunk, if you can imagine. There was a small space at the
end which could house one or two bags. On the right hand side, there
was a normal bunk bed, the only problem being the top bunk, again,
had about a six inch gap between it and the ceiling, which meant the
occupant could not sit up, and continually banged their head on the
ceiling whenever they got into the bed. Guess who had been assigned
the top bunk?
The others were all
full, so there was no option to move. In retrospect, I should have
asked to move rooms, but I was so miserable from the prospect of
spending two nights in this, for lack of a better description, dump,
that I just lay in bed and stared at the ceiling for a while.
After an hour of this,
I switched on my laptop and paid the appropriate extortionate fee to
see if I could get hold of Jo, as I didn't have her phone number. I
got a message saying they were staying at Hot Water Beach and could I
meet them there for the low tide? I should explain here that Hot
Water Beach is located east of Haihei, and is a tourist attraction insomuch as if you dig a hole in the sand, you are curiously rewarded with
hot (sometimes scalding) water. For this reason, it's a whole heap of
fun to dig yourself a space and sit there, luxuriating in the warmth
before getting out and freezing your tits off trying to find your
towel in amongst the hundreds of other people's. I wasted no time in
getting a bag packed and strolling up to the receptionist to ask for
a bike, free to hire as advertised on their website. I was met with
the same lack of enthusiasm as before. In fact, she seemed downright
pissed off that I was in her breathing space. I asked if I could
borrow a bike. She huffed about a $20 deposit and said she had to get
me a reflective jacket and helmet. 'No problem', I said, 'could I also
borrow a spade for Hot Water Beach?'
I was told they didn't
have any left, and was genuinely offered a fairly impractical solution in the shape of a giant shovel. Now I had to
be straightforward – 'Erm, I'm not sure how that's going to fit on
the bike...'
She put the shovel
angrily aside, as if not quite sure whether to batter me senseless
with it. I hurriedly volunteered that I could get one from someone at
the beach. She nodded, told me I MUST return the bike that evening
and let me on my way, but not without an oddly caring remark. 'Please
do wear the reflective jacket, it's a dangerous road for speeding
cars.' I told her I would take the utmost care, and sped away to grab
the bike. What a machine it was! Rusted gears, cobwebs around the
brakes and a seat so hard that it would only comfortably accommodate a eunuch.
Fabulous.
I managed to get the
beast into fairly swift action as I cruised down HWB road, wearing my
jacket as instructed and keeping left so the 100kph crowd could pass
me safely. After a small incline that felt like Kilamanjaro, I dumped
the bike in the mostly empty car park and ran onto the beach. The sun
had started to wane slightly, but I left my concerns with the bike
and managed to find the hot spot by seeing about 200 tourists
gathered tightly on an otherwise empty beach. Jo was nowhere to be
seen, so I decided to sit it out and see if I could dig my own hole
without looking too weird. Borrowing a spade from a nearby family, I
pathetically started to dig myself a hole. It was more difficult than
I had anticipated. Who would have thought that a child's plastic
spade, patently designed for digging sand at the beach, would be an
ineffectual tool for – well – digging sand? After a few minutes
of shaving sand and flinging it into the faces of a nearby family, I
sat in my shallow well in some cold water and wondered why I was
there. The sunset inevitably continued and I decided to head home, so
I towelled off and headed back to the 'bike', which I hoped hadn't
been stolen. It hadn't, so I started to cycle home. Jo called me as I
was a few kilometres away, having only just seen my message. Never
mind. I eyed the darkening sky warily, and stuck my head torch on
backwards, in the hope that passing cars would see the faint light
and realise there was an idiot cyclist on the road when she shouldn't
be.
I was almost home when a car pulled up to my side and a man stuck
his head out from the passenger window. I was wary – it was dark, I
was alone, and here's some randomer slowing down to talk to me. I
tried to recall some self defence moves just in case. It turned out
he had just popped his head out to tell me off for cycling in the
dark. I looked sheepish, assured him I was about two minutes from
home and sped off, hoping he would find this answer satisfactory. He
didn't mow me down, so he must have been alright with it.
All that cycling made
me hungry, so once I got back and returned the bike to its holder to avoid any aggro from reception, I had a look in my food bag to see what I had. A jacket
potato and tin of beans seemed to be about all that was going for me,
so I fished them out and attempted to make a meal. This is somewhat
difficult when the hostel you're staying in doesn't provide essential utensils or seem to maintain a basic level of hygiene.
The kitchen was packed,
as is usual for a campground in the middle of nowhere, as it is the
central hub for socialising as well as mealtime activity. The sink
was full of used plates, fat and cutlery. I extracted a plate and a
knife and fork, washed them as best I could in the lukewarm water and
avoided touching any of them with the teatowel that was hanging from
a nearby nail. I could almost see the bacteria swarming all over it
(for those of you who have had the unfortunate luck to live with me,
you know how much I hate dirty teatowels). I viciously stabbed the
potato a couple of times, then stuck it in the microwave, a device so
unfathomable it would have taken Stephen Hawking to work out how to
use it. Eventually, after a few random punches into the keypad, it
seemed to do something that resembled cooking, and I turned my
attentions to the beans.
I scoured the kitchen
for a tin opener, even getting nearby people involved in the search.
Eventually, a heavily rusted one appeared from a filthy drawer, and I
stuck it onto the rim of the can, where it pierced the tin with a
satisfying ooze of bean juice. However, after turning the key a
couple of times, it became apparent that it had not been used in a
while, and broke apart in my hands, rendering it utterly useless.
Well, now I had a very slightly open tin of beans and nothing to
fully open it with. The situation was looking bleak. As is
traditional in crappy hostels, the kitchen knives had been through
years of abuse and trying to use one to open the tin would have bean
futile (sorry, I couldn't resist). Nobody seemed to have a gadget
that would help, and my own Swiss Army knife is a girls' one,
featuring a short but weak blade, (presumably for whittling sticks and fending off potential rapists) and a pair of nail scissors,
neither of which I wanted to ruin opening a tin of Budget beans.
So I took my microwaved
potato out, stuck it on the damp plate and scoured the free food shelves for a
suitable accompaniment. There were some abandoned packets of
McDonald's margarine which I wasn't sure I could brave due to lack of
information on their age, so I settled for some McDonald's pepper
sachets that were sat next to them. It was probably the most
depressing dinner I have eaten in a long while, since the days of
university 'experimentation' with egg and tinned tomato that was less
Heston Blumenthal, more Stig of the Dump.
I got chatting to a
friendly German girl and a super-healthy looking Kiwi bloke while I
was burning my mouth with lava-hot, semi-cooked potato. I learned
that this girl had experienced the wrath of the receptionist earlier
as well and it made me feel slightly relieved that her vendetta
wasn't personal. We all sat together after our meals (theirs
definitely better than mine) and discussed the usual holy trinity of
questions that all backpackers ask each other: Where are you from? /
Where have you been? / What did you do back home? Amen. It turned out
the German girl was hitchhiking her way around – I thought she was
either brave, foolhardy or both, and we talked long into the evening
about the Kiwi bloke's slightly unconventional job (he seemed to be
part of a pyramid scheme, but was trying to convince us he wasn't and
it was all legit. He also seemed to have some unconventional ideas on
food, and was adhering to a ketogenic diet – see here if
interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketogenic_diet
). All in all it was an interesting and thought
provoking way to spend an evening in a filthy kitchen. The German
girl announced she was off to bed. I naturally assumed she was
staying in a dorm like I was, but she'd had to pay the same amount
($30, not cheap) to borrow the 'emergency tent' from the hostel and
pitch up at a designated spot. This would have been a horrendous rip
off even if the tent and pitch were adequate, but the central pole
for the tent was broken, and the groundsheet had a few holes in it
that periodically let ants in. I was silently relieved for my room.
That is, until I got, or rather, folded myself, into bed.
I have never
experienced the sheer volume and quantity of snoring that I did that
night. I think it must atone for all the snoring I have done at other
people, and that's a fair amount I can assure you. I can't describe
it accurately, only to say that when the girl breathed in, it
reminded me of that scene in Pinocchio where the blue whale inhales
Pinocchio, his father Geppetto, Jiminy Cricket and all their
possessions. (I would find a link on YouTube for you but am currently
behind The Great Firewall of China and apparently looking at videos
might stir some latent revolutionary behaviour.) When she breathed
out, it was like the sound of a shire horse snorting, all
reverberating gummy nostrils, for an extended period well beyond the
limits of reason.
This, obviously,
continued all night. I had earplugs so effective that they blocked
out the sound of my phone alarm ringing, but against this might, they
were useless.
The next morning, I
gathered my clothes, towel and washbag, and pottered off to the
shower. It was only when I was stark bollock naked that I realised
I'd left my crappy little hot water token in the room. Urgh. I
wrapped myself in my towel and went back to retrieve it, only to not
be able to find it, and noticed that there was a token in the snoring
girl's shoe, which was by the bunk underneath me. Now, logic and
reason dictated that the token had probably fallen off my bed and
into her shoe, but her vast, unstirring bulk told me that if that was
not the case, soon I would probably find myself and my possessions in a
similar predicament to Pinocchio and Geppetto. So I had a
cold shower. Yep, I totally wimped out.
I managed to get hold
of Jo and she came to my rescue in the form of herself, her boyfriend
Dave and her friends Laura and Scott, and I spent a lovely day with
them exploring a freezing cold waterfall and eating a delicious
picnic of french bread and Coromandel smoked mussels on Whitianga
Beach. It certainly beat potato and McDonald's pepper, and even when
a seagull dumped a huge turd on my head (fortunately covered with
bandana) I was happy and grateful to be in their company. We spent
the afternoon on Haihei Beach and I prepared to get a 'ginger tan':
Working on my tan
We even managed a visit
to Hot Water Beach, where I got my second chance at experiencing the
fun. Needless to say it was a lot more jolly with others in tow,
especially when it came to digging the hole in the first place!
I spent my last night
in the company of the sleeping giants, and the next morning happily checked out at the
earliest opportunity.
'Was everything ok with
your stay?' the now-saccharine receptionist asked me. I wondered if
she'd had a lobotomy in the last 24 hours, her attitude was so
utterly different.
'Sure...' I muttered,
copping out of actually explaining how I felt about the place. I
still regret not giving her a piece of my mind, but actually felt it
achieved more to write about my experiences on that staple of travel
reviewing, TripAdvisor. OK, so it's not really fair to bitch about
somewhere when you've told them face to face that your stay was ok,
but I am like that wimpy dinosaur Rex from Toy Story when it comes to
confrontations, and the tin opener really was the last straw.
Jo and the gang kindly
picked me up, we all went for breakfast and then they dropped me off in
Thames, which felt like, and was, the arse end of nowhere.
My plan was to do the
Pinnacles walk, but of course, this didn't happen. It took me over an
hour to get there by hitching, although I did enjoy the interactions
with the drivers. One man was a horticulturalist / massive hippy who
was teaching children at the local school about biodiversity, and the
other was a policeman originally from Essex, and his two
adorable ginger girls. He was kind enough to go out of his way to
drop me off at the beginning of the walk and said if I got into any
trouble I could pop down to their house, which was about 20 mins walk
from the visitor's centre. I thanked him for his kindness and stuck
my head into the visitor's centre, where I was informed it would take
about 8 hours to do the round trip. It was already about 2pm so this
was unfeasible. I got myself armed with a map and found a couple of
smaller routes I could string together to entertain myself for the
afternoon.
So it was that I
strolled through various pretty gladed walks, some with information
about the hallowed Kauri and the logging industry, one with a clean
section of river at the end known as Hoffman's Pool, where I could
swim if I desired to immerse myself in very cold water. I didn't, so
I sat around and observed some daring teenagers jumping off bits of
cliff into the pool, and continued on my way.
I didn't have to wait
too long for a lift home. A van full of kindly pensioners on a day
trip picked me up and being the secret OAP that I am, I enjoyed their
company on the way home as they told me about the area and what they
had been up to that day. It turned out they knew the owner of the
hostel I was staying at (of course, who doesn't know everyone in New
Zealand?) and told me to say hello.
I showered and ate some
unremarkable pasta dish, said hello to my roommates and the hostel
owner, as promised, and set out into Thames with the aim of watching
The Hobbit. The cinema was so tiny and old-school, it can't have been
renovated since the 1930s, by the look of the décor in the theatre.
I was alone until just before the opening credits started rolling,
when an elderly couple came in. This really was Sunday night in
Thames! The Hobbit was made more enjoyable by familiar scenes of the
mountainous South Island and a bag of sweet popcorn.
I walked home down the
absolutely silent, dark high street. I have never been anywhere so
quiet in all my life. It was almost post-apocalyptic, and pretty
creepy. I quickened my pace and ran the last five minutes, my
imagination working overtime to convince myself I was in some sort of
horror movie. And I'd only watched The Hobbit – imagine if it had
been Saw III...
The next morning I
wandered about 5k up the road to the butterfly centre, took a walk up
a steep track and got back in time for a coffee and snack before the
bus back to Auckland showed up. It was a pleasant, sunny day, and I
enjoyed not really rushing for anything and took photos of houses and
gardens I fantasised I would buy when I was rich and famous (not
really doing a great job of achieving that goal so far, but oh well).
My last few days in the
country were spent at the Ross' house, generally enjoying their
company and being lucky enough to make use of their swimming pool
which was now warm enough for general consumption. Jamie taught me
how to do those underwater rolls at the end of lengths (amongst other
things, I'm a crap swimmer) and I just about managed, albeit very
awkwardly. I have probably forgotten by now. Rebecca Adlington does
not need to worry.
The night before I was
due to leave, I got that feeling that I always get before I embark on
the unknown – that kind of uncomfortable, nervous, what-am-I-doing
feeling that usually creeps in around 3am when I am wide awake
worrying about whether I switched the oven off before I came to bed.
Only this time, it was the feeling that I'd just got used to living
and working in New Zealand when it was time for me to be off again.
Australia, not being a million miles away from New Zealand culturally
and physically, seemed like an easy switch, but once I read the
weather report for Cairns, which is where I was heading, my eyes
nearly popped out of my head. The not-always-accurate weather app
thing on my phone said it would be 33 degrees when I landed,
helpfully illustrated by a little lightening symbol next to the
figure in numbers.
I made a mental note to
check I had plenty of suncream. And a raincoat.
