Singing to a former MP...

It continued to rain for a good few hours and I just read and played guitar. As soon as it stopped though I got up and decided I would head to Rainbow Falls. This turned out to be trickier than I thought! I had to make a pretty wet river crossing, hopping across some pretty slippery rocks with my shoes and socks in one hand! The path was pretty muddy due to all the rain and no-one else was in sight, probably for the same reason. Having got lost a few times it was beginning to get pretty dark so I thought I'd better run! A nice chap walking his dog pointed me in the right direction and I just ran, I felt as fit as I've ever felt, it was exhillarating! I eventually made it to the falls and it was just about light enough to see how amazing it was! It seemed about the same height as Whangerei falls, maybe slightly higher and it was, even in the bad weather, breathtakingly beautiful. On the way back I decided I'd try and find the way back over the road as opposed to through the bush. I'd read this was much quicker and as it was by now pitch black it made sense to go a route that involved some lighting! I got hopelessly lost and was wondering around for a good hour until I saw a sign that said KeriKeri! By then my shoes (getting pretty ruined by now, they were certainly not designed for hiking) were starting to give me really painful blisters so I took them off and just went on in my socks. Then came the rain... it absolutely tipped it down and everything was soaked, my socks, my clothes, the pavement. Everything except my shoes which i was holding which had somehow remained fairly dry so I decided I'd go back in my socks and try and keep my shoes dry as it takes absolutely ages to dry shoes! It was freezing, carried on raining and my feet were starting to hurt from walking on the rough roads. My socks by this point were ruined and had massive holes everywhere. It took 1 and a half hours to get back to HoneHeke Lodge, drivers were giving me the strangest looks thinking 'who's this joker walking in the pitch black and driving rain in his socks while holding his shoes'! I was drenched, absolutely exhausted, but it was another story to tell! On my return I had to do the old laundry as most of my clothes were now covered in mud! I slept well that night I can tell you.

The next day was a non-day really (21st Sept). I wanted to hitch-hike to Ahipara but it rained all day and so I decided to stay another night and go the day after. I spent most of the day working on a new song of mine which is now finished, It's a pretty light hearted one called 'A Girl in a Movie', I came up with the idea for it while flying into AUckland watching a film on the plane! Apart from that though it was a pretty uneventful day!

The next day (22nd Sept) I got up early, packed and hit the road for what was to be a big hitch-hiking journey (around 100km) to Ahipara. I remember waking up that morning and thinking I have no Idea where I'll be in 12 hours time, that's the glory of hitch-hiking, and I'd never have guessed this outcome...

I walked to a good spot outside KeriKeri and within 5 minutes of having the old thumb up a nice elderly gentleman called Alan offered to take me to Waipapa (which was great as that's on one of the main roads to Kataia). Having got to Waipapa it was a bit trickier but within about 30 minutes a very commanding sounding man had stopped on the other side of the road and offered to take me as far as Matauri Bay (about 20km up the road). I said yep, sounds good so he turned round and introduced himself as Dover. He was a stocky man and even when just talking normally his voice was very commadning and he spoke in very short bursts. It turned out he was a member of Parliament for 16 years, being in charge of Maori affairs (he was himself a Maori) and 2 other areas which I've forgotten. So he was pretty high up in parliament, he'd retired because he'd had enough of it apparently. It was then he told me he had a caravan (it turned out to be more like a house!) on Matauri Bay and he had a tent if I wanted to stay the night. Of course I said yes as I'de heard great things about Matauri Bay and when we got there it was breathtaking, absolutely amazing! Not many people around and the bluest Sea I have ever seen. I asked if his caravan was one of the ones in the caravan park and he said it wasn't, his was apparently further round the corner. It turned out his 'caravan' was on another Beach in the most amazing spot ever!

This guy must be absolutely loaded I thought, and it turned out to be correct, he also owned a house in KeriKeri which he bought for 1.6 million NZ dollars apparently, around 700,000 pounds sterling but he barely used it because it was 'too luxurious', crazy! He let me explore the bay for a couple of hours (I spent most of the time playing guitar on a great spot overlooking the sea). Then it was time to put my tent up, which I did pretty quickly, I was impressed! Having met his cousin (owner of the biggest glassmaker in New Zealand) he asked If I wanted to go out on his oat and catch some fish! Normally i'd have said no to this as a) I get pretty seasick and b) I hate killing stuff, but I'd made a bit of a resolution with myself to say yes to everything (within reason) and have an open mind on this trip so I said yes sure. His boat was basically a large metal rowing boat with a motor attached to the back and boy did it go! It was ridiculously fast! We were out at sea in no time and he taught me to put bait on and throw in a hand-line. I was in control of 1 while he was holdsing 2 lines. I actually caught the first 2 fish but Dover deemed them too small to eat and so mercifully put them back in the Sea, this made me happy. But it was to get much more brutal. Dover soon caught a massive Snapper, and I mean massive and before I knew it he'd killed it with a knife and thrown it in a bucket. More (although of a smaller size followed), Dover was a killing machine, I struggled (but forced myself to) look as he killed a couple more. It was all pretty brutal with blood all over the place ( a lot of it on me) but something about the fish in their last seconds of life emitted peace, as if they'd accepted that their final struggle was fruitless and that they would soon pass away, it was all part of the circle of life, I can't really explain it but there was something there. I don't think I would do it again but I'm glad I went and I respect Dover and anyone who fishes like this, Dover eats every part of the fish, and I mean every part, the guts, the head all of it which is apparently the way Maoris have always eaten their catch, nothing is wasted. There was some sort of respect in his killing of the fish, as if he was grateful for the food they brought. As I've said though, fishing certainly isn't for me but I'm glad I at least gave it a try, it was certainly an experience! After all how can you form an opinion on something if you know very little about it? Later that night he cooked the fish while I played him some songs on the guitar and then we sat down and I ate my first fish! It was quite nice actually.

I slept pretty badly that night, I don't think I've ever had a good nights sleep in a tent. I hate the fact you can't see outside, I'd much rather just sleep out on the grass to be honest, but it was far too cold out there!!

In the morning (23rd) I headed up to the top of a hill on the Bay on which there was a the Rainbow Warrior memorial (a greenpeace ship, look up the story on the internet, it's an interesting story showing some serious dodginess on the part of the French). The views up there were amazing!

Dover then took me back to the main(ish) road to Kaitaia (SH10). It took a while to get a hitch from here and I had my hopes up when a lorry pulled up with Kaitaia written on, (Kaitaia is not far from Ahipura) however it turned out his trailer was ruined and so he had to stop and get someone to come and fix it. I moved to a different spot as the lorry meant that no drivers could see me anymore and as soon as I arived at a spor round the corner a couple of hippy Australians picked me up! Ellie and Strat they were called and they were both musicians themselves. I had a great chat with them both (they were exceptionally nice people) and they dropped me off in Kahoe which put me another 20km closer to my target destination! The next guy to pick me up looked exactly like Sylvester Stallone! It was insane! I thought, Is this Sylvester Stallone as he pulled up but he was driving a battered Mondeo so I had my doubts. It turned out he was local guy called Mak who had a completely different accent to stallone but al his mannerisms and tone of voice were pretty much identical! It was like getting driven around by Rocky! He even bought me a cookie and cream ice-cream from a shop near Cable Bay. He was off on a fishing mission for crayfish and dropped me off just 8km outside Kaitaia as he had to turn off. I got a lift into Kaitaia off an electrician and another nice Mauri lady called Charlotte took me from Kaitaia to Ahipara, I'd made it from KeriKeri to Ahipura using only my thumb, great stuff!

Ahipura is pretty much like a run down and smaller version of Paihia, a town right on a really long beach. My first impressions of the hostel (Endless Summer Lodge) were very good and they had only one bed free when I arrived so I got lucky!! This hostel was packed and this took a while of getting used to having had an entire dorm to myself in KeriKeri! It was good though and I met a tonne of people including a fellow Swissman, fellow St. Gallenian even! That was a novelty, I also made friends with about 6 Germans, a very cool Austrian guy called Roland and a great french guy called Jean-something, he prefferred to just be called JM! They immediately asked me to play some songs so we had a bit of a sing along and I jammed with JM and Roland for a while before we played a game called Jungle speed! This game involved speed of mind so I was absolutely terrible! Still it was good fun.

The weather forecast was pretty terrible in the Northland for the next few days, (today I've just been relaxing with the firends I'd made at the hostel as it's raining really badly) and hitch-hiking in wet weather is pretty much impossible (no-one wants to pick up someone who is soaked) so I had to crumble and book myself on a tour, which was actually quite cheap, to Cape Reigna and back. The tour is tomorrow (25th Sept) and i'm looking forward to it! I'll then head south via the old thumb and hopefully run into better weather. This area is notorious for a lot of rain because the island is so thin in this part. I'm hoping to try some surfing too once I get into better climates!

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