Ra Ra The Noisy Lion

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22nd November

Incredibly organised this morning, breakfast, showered, washed up and left for my walk by 9.20.

I am headed for The look out on Kaihiti Hill which over looks the city. It is quite a urban walk, follow the path by the river, cross the river, head towards the docks, and take the track up the hill. Simples.

There’s is what appears to a disused railway by the walkway, but I am not entirely convinced as all the road signs say “Look for Trains". As I get to the point where I need to cross the river I see the walkway on the bridge is closed to pedestrians, I figure that the walkway on the other side of the bridge is probably open. Then I spot people walking on the railway line to cross the river. In fact I spot a couple of people half way across sitting down and fishing from the railway line. Keen to take as short a route as possible through town I follow their lead and use the railway line to cross the river.

It brings me out in to the commercial side of the dockyard where they land and process fish, I follow the shoreline passed the marina, which is fill of some pretty nice looking yachts by the way.
The walk then takes me along the road to loading bay for the timber that I had seen being transported by road yesterday. There is a lot of wood, it seems that the only thing transported from the dock is wood, nothing else.

I get to the entrance to the reserve to walk to the top of Kaihiti Hill, not long after I start waking in the reserve I see a sign to the Look out Point, it involves steep steps, I decide that I am built for long meandering slopes rather than short steep slopes, so I continue along the gravel road towards the picnic area, the road continues passed a playground. I take a seat and have 5 minutes and some water. I passed benches earlier up the climb, but I had convinced myself that if I sat down I might not get back up again. I am suddenly surrounded by 6 very boisterous children and two ladies, who apologise for disturbing my peace and quiet. Time to move on.

I see a sign for the Lookout Point. I see steps, but as I had got this close to the top I am not giving up. I climb 100 steps in total, get to a car park, across which there are more steps.

Made it to the top, quite a view. There is a little monument at the top, telling you all about the fact that that James Cook first landed in New Zealand in the bay below; which he called Poverty Bay because he had not been able to get fresh supplies from the locals.

I stayed a while at the top, taking in the view and catching my breath and had a snack. Time to head back to the van. First, I had to tackle those steps, the first set on the way down had a handrail, no problem. Got to the car park and two fire engines were pulling up, no idea why. I went down the bigger steps one step at time, it was slow but steady progress, got to the gravel road and the rest of the trip back to the van was steady .

I was almost back at the van, when I stopped at a little van selling coffee, just what I needed and I bought a breakfast slice, more about that later. I carried on walking til I got to a bench by the beach and sipped my coffee whilst watching the tug boats manoeuvre a ship in to the dock yard. I ate my breakfast slice, which I thought was chocolate cover flapjack, no it was much healthier than that, it contained nut butter, figs, seeds, dried fruit, far to healthy in my opinion.

I got back to the van, hand washed a few clothes, then I took my boots off and put my feet up for an hour or so, and read my book and had lunch, there were some other walks I fancied nearby so I booked another night.

Chilled a bit more and then headed into town to find a cash machine, popped I to a local Information Centre on the way to ask about other walks I could do in the area. Information overload occurred when the lady had given my the 7th leaflet about things I “must do"; she must be on commission.

I find a cash machine and head back to camp, I had hoped to find somewhere to buy something for food tonight. No joy, so fish and chips again.

I while away the rest of my evening reading and writing my blog and turn in for the night as it starts to get dark. At this point the builders on site start up a generator or something; all I know it is bloody noisy. I lie in the van, becoming increasingly irritated by the noise, finally at 9.30 I have had enough. No consideration for people trying to sleep on site, they started the damn thing up after it started getting dark.

Raaaarrgh, someone hit Ra Ra for me.

March over to reception, press the intercom to get the Duty Manager, ask if he had any idea when the builders are due to finish tonight. His response, “Not my department", I rant about customer service and walk away to see the builders. “What time are you due to finish?”, I ask, about 15 minutes is the response. Head back to the turn the lights on and read a book as I given up on the idea of sleep while all the racket is going on.

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