Advertisement
Published: February 15th 2011
Edit Blog Post
There was one more altercation with the Swiss couple, and this one really wasn't my fault. There were many shelves in the refrigerator, but because it was a low refrigerator and because most of the shelves were squeezed tightly together, only the top shelf was convenient to use. The other couple had placed their grocery-bag on the left-hand side of this shelf, so I put mine to the right.
The wife of the couple found my bag there, and just about went ballistic. I'm not sure exactly what she said, since it was in German, but I gather that she thought they had claimed that top shelf for theirs by putting their bag on it first, and that I was deliberately intruding into their space, just as I had barged into their room. That was the point at which the husband told me to stay away from everything that was theirs.
I went ahead and moved my food without comment. This was, I gather, their first hostel, from the fact that the husband kept unfavorably comparing it to the hotels he had previously stayed in. If they ever go to another, they will have a rude awakening, as in
every hostel I've stayed in except Buccaneer Lodge, food is stuffed into the communal refrigerator wherever there is room for it. And Buccaneer Lodge had each shelf clearly marked as a particular resident's space.
But, to misquote Christopher Fry, let's not talk further about them; it will make the outlook so dark.
This morning, I did my Internet browsing in the lobby, both to make use of the Global Gossip day pass I still have, and to get out of the way of my disapproving housemates. There I heard the owner organizing a shuttle-bus group to go to Hot Water Beach and Cathedral Cove.
It was agreed that I could go for $20, and that I would be taken to Hahei Beach instead of Cathedral Cove, as I was not agile enough to climb down the cliff to the cove.
Hot Water Beach was exactly as advertised, and a lot of fun. Far below the ground there, there are rocks heated by volcanic activity, and water heated by the passage over those rocks wells up almost to the surface. If you dig in the sand, hot water flows out.
Most people dug themselves hot tubs.
Ferry ride
No, that isn't I in the picture. I was afraid of amoebic meningitis, so I contented myself with digging in the sand with my toes, and letting the waves wash the top layer of sand away and release spurts of hot water in my direction. It was really neat! Normally, when you dig in the sand, you begin with hot sand and reach a cold layer about as far down as you can comfortably dig; on this beach, you experienced the exact opposite. The water was really hot; the shuttle bus driver said that people had been known to hard-boil eggs in it.
Unfortunately, after I'd been there about an hour and a half, an exceptionally big wave came rolling in. It knocked me right off my feet, and for a few moments I couldn't get up.
That wouldn't have been a big problem. The water was shallow, I was in swimwear, and I can swim pretty well. But I was carrying my street clothes in the pizza bag, and wearing my purse. And, as I found out later, I had forgotten to take my camera's battery charger out of the pizza bag.
A lifeguard and a tour guide came to help me, but
Hot Water Beach
from the parking lot I had gotten to my feet before they arrived. God was with me; my stick came apart into two pieces, and I dropped both of them, but neither was swept out to sea.
My purse partially kept out the water, so that my passport is only a bit damp, and my day's medicine survived, in its water-resistant box, perfectly well, as did my new inhaler. All my ID cards and credit cards are laminated, except my voter-registration card, which seems to have come through its ordeal rather well. The only real loss from my purse (and it
is a loss) was the encouraging note from "Len of the Cathedral" in Napier.
The pizza bag did not keep out the water. (To be fair to it, it was in the water a lot longer than my purse was.) My street clothes were soaked, and my camera charger got a bit damp too. I was very worried about it overnight, but it seems to have dried out now. I'll know for sure once I actually have to use it; right now my camera's battery is fully charged. I do hope it isn't broken; it would be cheap enough to replace
Hot Water Beach
from the beach itself at home, but here all I would be able to get, at best, would be a charger with a New Zealand plug on it, and at worst I wouldn't be able to keep taking digital photos at all.
Anyhow, the lifeguard helped me back to dry land and invited me to sit and rest in his dune buggy. He offered to give me a ride back to the parking lot, but I declined because I wanted to walk with the other shuttle bus passengers.
When the shuttle bus came, the driver kindly agreed to take me straight back to the ferry instead of leaving me at Hahei Beach in my wet clothes. He also gave me a booklet of photos of the Coromandel; I'm not sure why; perhaps because I had had only a half-day of travel and had still been charged $20. It was very nice of him to give it to me, and I like it and will keep it, though it got a bit damp because I had no thoroughly dry place to put it. It's called
Coromandel in Colour.
We'd had to take a ferry to get to the shuttle bus. It's a
Hahei Beach
From scenic overlook. five-minute crossing, but it cuts off over 20 miles of winding country road. I hadn't realized I needed to pay the ferry on the trip over (I was thinking, confusedly, that it was part of my shuttle-bus tour, as had been the ferry across Lake Manapouri) so I paid them for both ways on the return trip. They didn't seem to mind. It was $2 a crossing. The ferry vibrated rather painfully, but the view was excellent.
Right after I got back, my new housemates arrived. They are a brother and sister from Saskatchewan, and so far I like them and they seem to like me. They readily agreed to shut the door when they went to bed. I am tucked up in bed in my room now, staying warm. For some reason I am very tired and sore; I must have exhausted myself on the excursion without realizing it.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.082s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 6; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0526s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb