Whangarei to Hamilton

July 12, 2009

It was such a luxury waking up in that wonderful hotel in Whangarei, especially after countless backpackers. We reluctantly got up, packed up and got ready but we were determined to stay as long as possible before checkout time. The Kiwis who were also staying there had breakfast at the same time as us and offered to share their tamarillos. I had never had a tamarillo, nor had I ever heard of one. Raven had a not so good experience with the first tamarillo she ever tried so she wasn’t particularly keen on having another one. However, when I accepted their offer to try one, she also did and was glad that she did as the tamarillos fresh from an orchard are much yummier than their grocery store brethren. I’m going to have to find more tamarillos later because they were yum.

The cyclone continued on into today and the rain hadn’t let up when we walked back out the door. It was still pouring down rain and the wind was howling. We ventured back out and decided to stay in Whangarei for the morning and go see a movie. All of the movies at the local cinema were American in origin (surprise, surprise) and when I read the titles to Raven she suggested we see Ice Age 3. I never saw 1 & 2 so I had no expectations and was game. It’s always interesting seeing an American movie in a foreign country. It was especially telling when the preview for Planet 51 came on the screen and the aliens had their barbeque interrupted by an astronaut in a space suit planting an American flag into the ground. Yeah, we do kind of butt our way into things, don’t we? Speaking of ‘butt’, during the movie there was some mention of a ‘butt’ and this little kiwi girl behind me (no pun intended) repeated out loud, “BUTT”. I’m not sure if that word is used here or not. I’m guessing that buttocks might be instead, especially considering her reaction. It was funny. Unfortunately, that little darling also thought it was fun to kick Raven’s chair. Raven moved down a seat and then both little kids put their feet on the chairs. Did the parents say anything? Of course not. Raven moved seats for the remainder of the film, which she shouldn’t have had to do but oh well.

After the movie we decided that we’d better make our way south again because Raven needed to be back in Masterton by the 14th. Her husband had been fighting the flu for the past few days and he called to tell her that he thought it was Swine Flu. Uh oh. He’s feeling better but he’s still sick and contagious and Raven did not want me to contract his illness (thank you, Raven!) so she tried to get a hold of her daughter G in Wellington to see if I could stay there instead of in Masterton. We couldn’t get a hold of G but decided that regardless, I would be going to Wellington the next day, not to their house, even if I stayed at the YHA. We put on our book on CD and drove and drove and drove southward. We didn’t make many stops because we had a long ways to go but we did stop in a little Scottish town called “Waipu”. Wai is pronounced ‘why’ and pu is, yep, ‘pooh’. Great name! Speaking of Maori names, I also saw a town called Waipipi and another called ‘Putaruru’. The ones that start with Whaka are also a little uncomfortable as ‘wh’ is pronounced with an ‘f’ sound. You can see where this could go… Anyway, we stopped at Waipu at a pizza place and there was literally one pizza option that looked in any way normal or appetizing. We settled on that one. The other ones … well, I took a picture of the menu. I’ll be sure to post it so you can see it for yourselves.

We really didn’t make any other stops before Hamilton. We had an address for a backpacker there and followed it to the hostel. We pulled in and a sign said there was a turn around point out back. Well, it wasn’t much of a turn around point and Raven had to perform a 23,083 point turn to get the car turned around. She did not enjoy this. We went into the hostel and got a tour from the guy working there. Through the course of our conversation we discovered that the wireless program was awful and a bit of a rip off. Raven was not pleased. We went back outside and looked again at our options. Raven wanted to stay in a nicer place so we typed in another address and headed out. While we were driving there, she saw a sign for free wi-fi at a motel we were driving by. She stopped the car there and booked us a room. We walked into the room and it was FREEZING. It had one heater above the door and the windows were open. We tried to heat the place with the heater and the stove, which helped but it was still cold. I then tried to get online and failed miserably. Raven could but only intermittently. Even still, we had a relaxing evening in the room. Since I couldn’t use the internet I decided to try to catch up in my travel journal instead. I’m woefully behind in that thing but that extra time helped.