Guest at a Maori Party...

The tour to Cape Reigna (Sept 25th) was pretty good actually. We drove all the way there on the 90 mile beach despite the fact all other bus companies turned around as they thought the tide was too high! We nearly got ourselves stuck a couple of times but we made it. It's the first time I've ever had the experience of driving on a beach, and it just seemed endless (it is more like 90km than 90 miles though). Cape Reigna was absolutely breathtaking, one of those places where you have to force yourself to put the camera away because you're just thinking 'this is amazing must take a picture of that' everywhere you look! It was also incredibly, incredibly windy and as promised you could clearly see where the Tasman sea meets the South Pacific ocean. There was an immense power to the place, it was incredibly humbling. On the way back we had to take the road as tide was now far too high to allow driving on the beach anymore! We made a few more stops at some beautiful bays, did some sandboarding and then got back to the hostel at around 4pm. I spent the rest of the evening teaching Roland, JM, and David (the other Swiss guy) to play Walk Away by Ben Harper, it took a while but they got there eventually! I made great friends with all 3, I found Roland particularly hilarious. He has the funniest accent and his sense of humour is very similar to mine (i.e saying things in stupid accents), we had been moved into a twin room (for the same price as a dorm) due to some mistakes by the hostel owners and endless jokes were made about us having the 'couples' room'! JM was also hilarious because he was so stereotypically French. He had a baguette with every single meal I saw him eat and everytime a new woman arrived at the hostel he would mYsteriously head off to have a shower before making a move! Priceless! He also taught me a hilarious French song on guitar. All in all these were some of the best friends I'd made so far. I got all their contact details and will hopefull meet up with them further on in the trip or in the future. David invited me to come to his next time I'm in Switzerland.

The next mission for me was to head south and see the famous Waipoua Kauri Forest with the biggest Kauri trees in NZ (and therefore the world). The only problem was there was no (affordable) accomadation anywhere near the forest and by the time I'd have finished in the forest it would have been getting too dark to hitch hike to some accomodation. This problem was solved when I asked round the hostel about where people were going (26th Sept) and found two German girls were heading to the Kauri forest too (they had a car) and were then going to head to Dargaville for accomodation. They kindly said I could come with them and so I whacked my stuff in the back of their car and off we went! The Kauri Forest was amazing, Tene Mahuta (the biggest Kauti tree in the world) was immense. It dwarfed everything around it, not in height, but in sheer girth. It was once again a humbling experience, the four sisters and the 2nd largest Kauri tree were equally impressive. There was something fantastically peaceful about standing near these absolute wonders of nature. Having spent a good 2 hours there with the Germans we headed to Dargaville.

Dargaville was nothing special, just your average town really but I met a Mauri kid who was in my dorm working as he was working (culling Possums) with his Dad. He took a real interest in my travels and he told me about how he'd moved out of his home town (Palmerston North) because he was 'causing too much trouble'. Apparently he'd got in trouble for graffitiing his tag (a graffiti version of the word Havoc) everywhere. To me this was clearly a cry for attention, it seemed pretty clear that he had not received a lot of attention as a kid. As I taught him Walk Away by Ben Harper on guitar his face lit up and he was all smiles as if no one had ever taken the time to do anything like this with him before. It was pretty emotional for me, I felt pretty sorry for the poor kid and no one else in the hostel would give him the time of day, they all looked at him (his clothes had quite a few rips) and thought 'trouble' it seemed. He even asked if he could have one of my many wrist bangles and I gladly gave him one. Pikiato was his name, a misunderstood kid, deep down there is a heart of gold, he just needs to be told so.

Anyway the next day (27th Sept) I was planning to head to Waipu but things were to end up rather different...

I got a lift off the girls to Brynderwyr before hitching into Waipu with a kind Kiwi family. Having got there though something kept saying go to Raglan, go to Raglan. I can't explain it, it was weird but after I realised that Waipu was completely empty and no-one seemed to want to give me a lift to the Beach I headed back to the main road and put the thumb up with dreams of Raglan (a famous Surf town on the West coast). It took about 10 minutes and I got picked up by a great guy whose name I've gone and forgotten. He was working in Sport Psychology (pretty much what I'd studied at Uni) and we had a long chat about that. I told him about my fishing with Dover the ex MP and he was like 'What Dover Samuels? Are you serious?!!' It turns out Dover Samuels is a big name on the north Island and has a bit of a reputation (search him on Wikipedia to see what I mean!!). It seems I've already got myself a claim to fame here in New Zealand! I was dropped off in Auckland and had to get a bus out of there (hitch-hiking is illegal on the motorway and there is only motorway leading out of Auckland).

The guy who I hitch-hiked with told me I should get a bus to Ngawurahia rather than Hamilton (the more obvious choice). Hamilton is a pretty big town whereas Ngawurahia is only very small and has no hostel. It was apparently easier to get a lift from here to Raglan but it would be a much riskier option as it was getting late and I could end up stuck in Ngawurahia for the night. Despite this I took this suggestion as a sign and bought a ticket to Ngaruwahia. The driver said to me sarcastically 'Have an absolutely fantastic time here' and went on to claim there was nothing to do here at all. Little did she know I was to have possibly the best night of my trip yet in this very town!

I walked to the road to Raglan ready to hitch and I heard someone playing a song about dope on acoustic guitar through the window, I turned to look and the next thing I know I was being waved to come into the house (they wanted to hear me play guitar). One of the guys looked very similar to Bob Marley and was incredibly stoned/drunk. He introduced me to his two cousins. It turned out this was a Maori family, their house was a messy, very small bungalow but I have never felt so welcome in my entire life. Before long I was playing my sonf 'Blue' and they were dancing around everywhere singing along, it was the best audience I've ever had! Absolutely amazing, what wonderful people, they were just dancing round smiling and everything! Before long one by one more people arrived and were introduced to me. 'This is my cousin ... and this is my brother', this guy had a lot of brothers and cousins. Before long I'd been introduced to 14 Maoris who were now at this gathering. How fantastic! It was so great to see a family to be so close, they had the utmost respect and love for each other it was fantastic. They were clearly a very poor family but they couldn't care less, they had each other and that's all they seemed to need. It turned out they were massive fans of English music partuclatly Iron Maiden and they were pretty dissapointed when I couln't even play one English song! The next thing I know an Iron Maiden CD was on and mine and their guitar (which had a string missing) was being passed around. Every member of this family was really good at guitar, it was amazing. It turns out there was a bit of a family band tradition. They had a band that played every Sunday in the town and they'd get together for band practice every week. They knew literally every song ever. Tune after tune was coming out and we sang along (while they gave me a healthy supply of free beer) one of them was clearly the singer and was hitting all the right notes despite being completely stoned. It was a great display of family togetherness, something Western culture tends to lack. They were just together having a good time the way it should be. One of the family also taught me how to do a Hongi (a Maori greeting involvng the touching of noses)! Most people pay for tours to do this with a Maori but I'd got it for free, off a Maori who was not just some guy in a tourist attraction, but a friend. Awesome!

The 3rd eldest was a complete legend. His name was Boyz (pronounced Boyce) and he was the drummer. He drummed along brilliantly to everything on the table and was constantly smiling and relaxed. Everytime someone came in he'd go 'Hi brother this is my mate Clive from Switzerland who has come all the way here just to see me', I loved that! I felt unbelievably welcome and we sang and played away until there was only 3 of us left at 2am and we decided to hit the bed. Boyz insisted I have his bed and he sleep on the floor and despite my protests I ended up in the bed, what a guy! Unfortunately Boyz also told me that he'd spotted one of his 'brothers' (he was about 18 and apparently the black sheep of the family) going through my bag. He asked me to check if anything was missing, I didn't notice anything until the morning (28th Sept) when I noticed my Ipod was missing. Nothing else was missing but nothing else in my bag was valuable (I had my wallet, phone and camra in my pockets). Boyz was really annoyed about this (although somehow still as relaxed as ever) and he kept saying things like. 'I invite a nice guest into my house and he steels from him, he has no respect, he's giving this family a bad name'. I have to say he is doing just that, the rest of the family have absolute hearts of gold. Boyz promised me he'd get the Ipod back for me so I wasn't too worried to be honest as I trust everything that man says!

Boyz knocked me up some breakfast (28th Sept) and after watching possibly the worst film I have ever seen with him (it was called Ghost Ship) I hitched to Raglan. The guy who I hitched with informed me that Ben Hrper had a house in Raglan and so I immediately knew I'd come to the right place1 Having arrived I imediately fell in love with the town. It's only small but has everything you need but most importantly of all it's right on the beach and within about 1 hour of 3 other amazing surf-beaches. There's a really relaxed feel about the town and the hostel I'm in is immense. I've got an entire double bed right next to a huge window looking out over the beach! You can also rent free Kayaks and book surf-lessons straight from the hostel! I'll be staying here for a while that's for sure. I've already booked a surf-lesson for tomorrow to get me started and I'll spend a good week after that practicing to surf I think as I've always wanted to do it! I'm really, really looking forward to catching my first wave...

PS, I've just received a text from Boyz that he has indeed got my Ipod back (not sure how I'm going to get it back though other than hitching all the way there and back again). We'll see...

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