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Published: February 13th 2011
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I spent a difficult night, eventually dumping my laundry onto the bed and sleeping on it in an attempt to gain the softness I needed to get to sleep. That worked until 3:30 a.m. or so, when I woke up, cold because I was also sleeping on my blankets, and put on my robe. The robe apparently substituted for the thickness of one of the blankets, so that I was able to get back to sleep about 4:30 a.m..
They charge a day rate here, too; $5.00 if you use any of their facilities past 10 a.m. checkout time. That's nearly unheard of on the hostel circuit; most places are happy to let you stay in their lounge and use the common areas as long as you've surrendered the key to your room. But then, contrary to what the owner tried to tell me, most hostels I've stayed in have had ovens, too.
Thames is a lovely town, but I'll be really glad to move on from Sunkist. Fortunately my bus goes at 10:05 a.m., so I won't have to choose whether or not to fork over the $5.00.
Anyhow, thanks to the night I spent, at
least I had no trouble in getting up early enough to go to church. I had gathered from the Web that the local Anglican church only held services on Thursdays, so I went to St. James', the local Methodist-Presbyterian Church, instead. The people of St. James' told me that the Anglican Church did indeed have regular Sunday services, but I'm just as glad to have worshipped with them. Their Communion service was much more like the services I'm used to, though it was greatly shortened and somewhat modernized. At least
they said the Apostles' Creed.
I was recognized as a visitor in church and several people chatted with me in the parish hall afterwards. One had been to Washington, D.C., and she told me all about her trip. As I lived inside the Beltway in the late '80's, I was especially interested. Apparently one of the highlights for her was seeing and photographing a squirrel; there are no squirrels in New Zealand.
After church, I fried the last of the steaks. It didn't come out any better than the other two. A sad waste of good ribeye. I trust the next hostel will have an oven.
In
Downtown Thames
That's a zebra crossing. the afternoon, I walked over to see the Miniature Railway. It turned out to be shaped like a real train, not a toy train like the ones you see in malls at Christmas time, but it was just big enough to let an adult straddle one of the freight cars. The engineer, of course, sat just behind the engine. He had an actual seat, rather than just the padded top of a freight car.
The ride was about half a mile long, on a looped track. I was afraid I might fall off, as there was no way to hold on; you simply had to rely on your own balance. But I am glad to say that I didn't. When I mentioned this afterwards, the driver said he had gone slowly around curves out of consideration for me.
I would have enjoyed another ride, but I felt that to take a second one would be gilding the lily -- or, perhaps more accurately, pushing my luck. I watched others riding for a while -- mostly parents with small children -- and waved back when a child waved to me.
At three I walked up to the Thames
Historical Museum and paid their $5 admission fee. It was something of a disappointment, especially since the Mineralogical Museum had been so good. It wasn't bad for a small-town museum, but it was very much like the museum in my own small town -- eclectic, and with an amazing hodgepodge of stuff.
The gem of the collection, at least as far as I was concerned, was a 1901 automobile. They also had a couple of fine old typewriters and some casting equipment from a foundry. There were many other early 20th-century artifacts of home and the workplace, many of which I've used myself. There was a display of war memorabilia from the Boer War, World War I, and World War II, and a model prospector's hut.
I bought a piece of kauri resin. I don't know whether the USDA will let me bring it into the country, but it cost only ten cents, so it won't be any great loss if it is confiscated at the border.
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