Our route remained a straight shot almost throughout but proved longer than any of us had anticipated. We soon had to reassess our plan of going all the way up to Cape Reinga, the northernmost point of NZ. Three hours into our journey spending an inordinate amount of time in a supermarket, we debated our options while eating sandwiches made on the trunk of the car.
The decision: to skip Cape Reinga and 90-mile Beach and head directly to Pahia, the largest shore town of the Bay of Islands just south of the latter, and make the most of our three days there, rather than spend even more time in the car. After three more hours of suffering through the abominable selection afforded by NZ radio, we arrived. Opting to conserve our funds, we found a hostel with a campground and parking lot, and decided to take turns sleeping two in Cesar's tent and two in the car. We immediately uncorked a bottle of wine and set up camp.
We made yet another supermarket run, bought supplies for dinner, and settled in. Franca and I worked as sous chefs for Noelle, who it turns out had been educated at one of the foremost cooking schools in France. That night we enjoyed a delicious meal while watching the hilarious antics of the hostel dog, whom I nicknamed Sid Vicious, due to his crazy-eyed ability to cow other dogs twice his size.
A little tipsy and exhausted from our drive, I was the first one to bed. As I fell asleep to the light patter of rain on the tent canvas, Noelle and Franca prepared their night in the car, hanging patterned sarongs and skirts over the windows to keep any light out. I laughed heartily when I woke them in the morning; it looked as though Aerosmith's roadies had decked out the car.
After breakfast, Cesar went for a run and the girls and I hung out in the hostel for a bit. Later, we drove up to KeriKeri to hike to a local waterfall. We started off at the lovely river basin, where Cesar and I had the first of many ridiculous debates that day over whether or not a flock of birds waddling around consisted of geese or unusually large ducks. Never in my life did I think I would get to non-metaphorically use the phrase, "If it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck."
Our light trek took us past meadows lush with wild flowers and a forest of beeches and giant conifers with roots as large as small trees themselves. The sibling-like taunting between Cesar and I continued. He took a picture for me, and when I saw it, I stated that the angle he took it from made me look heavy. The ANGLE. He patted my stomach and replied, in all seriousness, "I know, but I did TRY not to get this in the photo." I scowled. "Don't worry," he continued. "It doesn't look that bad." My eyes became slits. I retaliated by scaring the pants off of him on the trail shortly thereafter.
We one waterfall and Cesar took a swim, despite the many treacherous rocks about. Only then did we learn that the main falls still waited another kilometer away. We hiked there, unaccountably tired and discussing the body's strange acquiescence to long hikes when prepared for such and its objections to pushing onward once you thought you were already done.
When we reached the larger falls, the girls stayed at the lookout point, while Cesar and I balance-beamed our way across to the other side, 20 meters upstream from the top.
We stood at the top, lamenting the rocks below and our subsequent inability to jump, but truthfully, it would have been a pretty treacherous leap anyway.
That night, we feasted, this time on Noelle's expertly prepared seafood pasta and salad, and went to bed early again. The girls had slept so comfortably in the car that they asked to stay there again, so after fraught episode in which Noelle thought she had lost the keys, they retired there and Cesar and I each climbed into our sleeping bags in the tent.
The following day marked the Kiwi national holiday of Waitangi Day, which we would fortunately be celebrating in Waitangi itself, only 2 miles above Pahia. Noelle, having a particularly affinity for seeing the dawn, roused us at 4am to start the day at the prayer ceremony held at the Waitangi marae. Sadly, the proceedings turned out largely to be a procession of politicians perfomring a fairly standard Christian litany rather than a Maori ceremony.
Disappointed, we returned to the hostel for breakfast, only to find that it hadn't been set out because some of the hostel guests hadn't done their dishes the night before. I complained loudly that we had done ours and paid for breakfast and that it was ridiculous to punish everyone for the negligence of a few. But the hostel owner remained willfully oblivious, so we left before I got my gander up any further.
On our second outing of the day, we were rewarded with the site of the Maori longboats cutting across the bay.
We walked back to Waitangi, marveling at the overcast skies that covered the entire area except for one solid circle of blue sky, hovering resolutely above the Maori sacred lands. Hoping this mysterious Maori mojo would hold, we wandered the fairgrounds and settled in to watch an intermural game of Maori rugby. The girls fell asleep on the grass, and I woke Franca to tell her that Cesar and I wanted to go into the Treaty Grounds and for the two of them to meet us at 2pm by the flagpole.
Gaining free admission, due to the holiday, Ceasr and I toured the Grounds, stopping at vendor stands, watching the launch of a longboat into the water, examining the intricate carvings inside the marae, and finally watching a performance of traditional Maori singing and dance...
... culminating in a haka.
The tongue-heavy Maori war chant and dance, once used to intimidate enemies on the battlefield, is now famously used by the national rugby team, the All Blacks, to psych out their opponents before a game.
2pm had come and gone, and I wondered where the girls had gotten to. We remained at the flagpole, then looked around a bit, and finally returned to the rugby field to find them sitting right where we had left them. Franca had no memory of me waking her, and they hadn't known where we'd gone.
At this point, Cesar headed back to town to catch a bus back to Auckland for a job interview. The girls and I had decided to stay on for one more day, in hopes of getting one day of unadulterated sun on which to enjoy the Bay. Just as Cesar left, I heard another performance beginning, and I goaded the girls into running over to see it, regardless of their sleepy state. They thanked me later.
As the last chords of the final song rang out, a downpour began and we ran for cover. We walked home through intermittent rain, laughing and enjoying some serious girl time. We stopped at the supermarket for what felt like the tenth time and that night, Noelle cooked for us once again. After dinner, we settled in to the hostel couches to watch "Silence of the Lambs", which Noelle and I had never seen and which Franca knew by heart, but only in German. I soon regretted the decision upon remembering that I would be sleeping alone in the tent, which Cesar had kindly lent us for another night. I'm not sure I had felt such an adolescent fear of the dark in all my life. Fortunately, two of our strapping young German hostel mates assured me that they would be in the tent right next to mine if I got too freaked out. No need, however. We turned on "Whale Rider," which put me in a decidedly mellower mood, and once I was out, I was out.
-Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Paihia, New Zealand
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