Kia Ora! So over this past week Nicole, Mary, and I made our way out of Wellington for a few days. Tuesday morning we caught the bus at campus and headed to the rail station to catch a bus up to New Plymouth. We knew when we got to New Plymouth it would be about a twenty minute walk to the hostel. No big deal since all we do here is walk around anyways. So we make our way to a roundabout where there is a sign for the hostel. The sign looks as if the hostel is to the right. So we keep walking and of course it starts raining and raining, and raining some more, and we can't find the street we're supposed to turn on. So we stop at a diary (convenience store), and the man has no idea what we're talking about, but he's nice enough to let us look at a map. It is then Mary realized we went the wrong way at the roundabout. Damn sign. So we venture back out in the rain when a lady outside stops us and asks if we're looking for the youth hostel. She proceeds to tell us we're on the wrong street, which we already know, but then offers us a ride because its raining. She happened to be at her neighbor's house helping out. So we go stand inside the garage with her neighbor, Dorothy, a 95 year old lady, who was so concerned that we were all wet. She really wanted us to stay so she could make us dinner. June, the lady driving us, then took us to our hostel and even came in to tell them that their sign is wrong and she is always finding people walking in the wrong direction. She was also the one to tell us about the earthquake in Christ Church. Thank God we didn't go there for our trip. It had been in the running earlier at least to fly into there. Guess we made the right decision. June gave us her phone number and told us to call her if we would like to join her out for dinner after we dried off. We definitely took her up on that offer. So she picked us up later and took us to the Ugly Duck where she regularly goes for Quiz Night (trivia). Side note: June went to University of Wisconsin Stout. Craziness
So we went back to the hostel to get some sleep because we had to get up early. We had to share a room with three other women. Of course we were all convinced that they were going to steal something. Anyways, we caught an early bus up to Tongaporutu, which is a black sand beach. This week's trips were based on a guidebook I was lended. This man came to New Zealand and wanted to do things that were not touristy. However, there was no guidebook for this so he wrote one himself. Tongaporutu is his favorite place on the north island. So everyone we had told we were going there seemed quite concerned. Now we know why. The bus dropped us off literally in the middle of nowhere. It was at an intersection with the only sign of civilization being some cows on the corner.
After a few minutes of laughing, the only thing to do was follow the sign. So we made our way up a road that had some shacks on it. Not really sure if anyone was living there or what the deal was, but we sure as hell didn't see anyone. We came across a camping area with maybe two campers. Right off the camping area is the mouth of the river, which at that time looked nothing like a river. When the tides are low the river is pretty much nonexistent.
So while this is pretty cool, its not exactly cool for eight hours. That's how much time we had until the bus picked us back up. So we walked along the coastline, which is where you're supposed to be able to see the Three Sisters, which are these rock pillars. Unfortunately there are only two left. Anyways, we didn't make it out there because the tides were starting to come in, and frankly none of us wanted to get stuck out there. So we played around in the sand for a while until Mary got stuck. She headed out towards a small pool of water where she began to sink, and sink some more. Nicole and I immediately backed away. We didn't need all three of us stuck, although it would have been pretty funny, but Mary had me laughing hysterically. She wanted me to come get her camera, but as I tried to walk out I started sinking too. No way was I going any further. So she put it in her backpack and began pulling and digging herself out. As she gets one foot out it of course starts to sink as she puts it down again. She then manages to dig her other foot out, but her sandal is still stuck. I'm not really sure how she managed to completely get herself out, but she did. All the while I a was off on the side laughing and taking pictures.
We headed back to the camping area and realized we had absolutely nothing to do, and it was only 10:00 am. We did notice a road that looked as if it might take us up the cliffs so we went for it. Well it took us a lot further than the cliffs that were right there. We met a couple who told us the trail went on for miles. Well we had nothing but time so we hiked, and hiked, and hiked some more through gorgeous hills. At different spots we could see the ocean, and we could almost always hear the thundering of waves crashing against the cliffs. So cool. It is a good thing we had been in Wellington for a week with all of its hills otherwise we might have died of exhaustion. It surprisingly didn't seem all that bad. At the point where the road ends and the trail begins also means we would be in pasture land the rest of the way. This meant sheep and cows everywhere. We decided we're pretty good at herding sheep, probably because they're actually a really stupid animal. They would run away from us, but in the direction we were heading, so we were always catching up. The cows on the other hand would stare us down not really sure what to do. We're not really sure how far we walked, but we were out for about four hours. Oh and we did get to see the Three Sisters from up on the cliffs.
When we got back to the camping area, the tides had come in, and where we had been walking earlier that day was now all water.
We then laid our towels out and all fell asleep. Nicole somehow forget to put sunscreen on this entire day and paid for it later. She was lovely shades of red and white. When we headed back to the bus stop we went to the other side of the road where the driver said we would pick us up. This side had an actual bus stop. It looked like an outhouse. The bus was late, but when we finally got in, he didn't really give us a chance to sit down, and Mary fell over, which had us all in hysterics. We then had dinner at a pub in town, grabbed some ice cream on the way to the hostel, and made out way back to shower because none of us smelled very good anymore. That night we had a really nice older lady staying in our room. However, it came out the next day, that we all had a moment of panic that she was going to kill us. Obviously none of us had ever stayed in a hostel before. Silly us.
We got up bright and early again to catch the bus to Mokau. This time we actually ended up in a town. A small town, but a town nonetheless. We headed down to the mouth of the river like the day before had no water in it. This turned out to be the best part of the day. First of all, black sand is amazing. It's so soft and some of it doesn't even get that hot, and well it is just beautiful. So we played around for quite a while. I was on my way out to climb a rock in the middle of the river when I came across what I thought was rock. It was mud. Very slippery mud. I don't even know how many times we almost all fell over, but we had so much fun playing in the mud, until we saw little hermit crabs crawling out holes.That ended the fun for me, but we found a cool cave and a small waterfall. We then walked up the river, through a lot of driftwood, and up to the ocean. From here, the beach goes on for miles and miles, and there is almost nobody in sight. It was so peaceful. So we walked. There were tons and tons of shells, and we kept finding this weird squishy blue thing. It felt like a plastic bag filled with air. I took a picture and asked one of the girls at a shop. They were blue bottle jelly fish. If you step on them you'll get stung, but nothing too serious. Good to know afterwards. We then had some lunch and laid around at a picnic area and watched the tides come in and swallow the area we had been walking around in earlier. The big rock I went and stood on was completely gone later in the day.
After getting back into town, we grabbed dinner and headed back to the hostel, but not without running into some friends, Sam and Nate. They were in town to climb Mt. Taranaki. We couldn't quite believe it was them when we saw them across the street. Small world. This had us in hysterics all over again. Sam has been quite the entertainment for us since we arrived and this was the icing on the cake. That last night none of us thought anything was going to happen at the hostel. Guess we got over that fear. We caught an early bus in the morning back to Wellington. Sam and Nate managed to change their tickets to the earlier bus to ride home with us. I talked to Sam most of the way home making the trip go by much faster.
So this trip wasn't the ideal trip, but we made the most out of it and had a blast. There was way too much laughing, and it made for some great stories. Sorry this post was so darn long. Until next time...
Kia Ora,
Laura
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