Days 88 and 89: Rest and Recovery


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Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Bay of Islands » Paihia
February 26th 2011
Published: February 26th 2011
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I have definitely hurt my collarbone. The whole top of my shoulder is swollen and tender to the touch, and the area around the pin has a ring of bright red blisters that I immediately dubbed "The Vampire's Kiss." I've never seen blisters like that before, but then I've never had an injury exactly like this before. There were no hard jolts, only twenty minutes of smallish jolts just hard enough to hurt.

It's a steel plate; it's a steel pin. The effect of the jolting was like hitting myself with a steel-headed hammer for twenty minutes. It's not surprising that my shoulder is so badly bruised.

I am frankly afraid of how much the trip to Auckland may hurt, to say nothing of the trip back home, especially the three days on Amtrak. But I knew when I started that the trip was likely to end this way, and it has. My shoulder's hurt before. It's not as though I'm not used to it.

I've spent much of the past two days in bed, resting, taking painkillers, and using my TENS unit to encourage the shoulder to heal. I wish I could go back to Russell, but ferries have motors too and it would be stupid to come within range of a motor I don't absolutely have to deal with.

I've gotten into town (Paihia) twice: both times to escape the daily vacuuming at the hostel. On Friday I closed my BNZ account, and grieved because they took away my pretty blue debit card; I wish they'd just let me cut it up and keep the pieces for a souvenir. Perhaps they would have if I'd asked them, but I couldn't find the words. I pocketted a BNZ pen of the same color instead; I think they were meant to be given out as there were several dozen of them.

Today, Saturday, I mailed another batch of souvenir papers home, mostly maps handed out by Great Sights. The Artisan Market was operational again, though with only half the number of booths the cruise ship had brought out, and I browsed through it for a while.

When I got back I tried to prebook a taxi for tomorrow, only to find that Haruru Taxis said they were booked solid at the time I needed a cab. Cap'n Bob's called their competition, Dial-a-Cab, and they were willing to come, but they said they'd charge $7, as opposed to the $5 I was charged by Haruru to come here.

So I paid $5 to get to Paihia, and I'll be paying $7 to get out. Ah, well, value added, I suppose. It's definitely worth more to get out of Paihia than to get into it.


















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