eNZed - day 5 (19-5-5)

This morning we had a bunch of hot choclate for breakfast with eggs and other stuff, but it was really the hot chocolate that was the standout. We chatted a bit with the painters from last night and then it was off to Wilderness Gems - the rock shop - in Ngatea (nngah-tee-ah). It was a nice sunny day during the drive, so we were all excited to be clean and headed for something fun. On the way out, we had the radio on and heard that the thunderstorm we were watching last night caused 6 massive landslides on the other side of the peninsula! A state of emergency had been declared!

The rock shop was huge, which definitely made it pretty fun. I found lots of things I was interested in, but as I'm a rock snob, I didn't find as much as Dave did.. A and I only spent ~$100, but Dave took the cake with twice that. He did get some nice stuff.

On the way back we stopped at the Country Kitchen Cafe and got some of the tastiest food we'd had so far. It was great. Unfortunately they call any kind of meat on a sandwich a "burger" so I ended up with a ham sandwich instead of a mushroom ground up cow snadwich.. but Dave was a sweetheart and traded with me so I could eat some cow. We also had some passionfruit pastry dessert that was crazy good. I didn't want to stop eating!




We headed up to the Waiomu (why-oh-moo) Valley for a hike to a kauri grove so we could work off lunch in time for sunset and dinner. This was a great hike, complete with the pretty feather grasses, fern trees, and stairs cut into the rock.





We also had to cross a cold river at least eight times. This was fine for me with my super-awesome-I-will-sell-you-a-pair-if-you-ask Chacos but Dave and A had shoes and socks on (suckers!). So every time we came to a crossing it was take them off, walk across, dry off, put them back on.. only to walk another five minutes (tops) and have to do it again. I rubbed it in as much as possible while splashing around looking for cool free rocks..

Along the way, we came across a couple of abandoned mine shafts with stale, rank odors coming out of them and signs not to go in. It reminded me of the first Lord of the Rings movie, but smaller.

We never ended up making it to the Kauri grove (damn those shoes) cause we ran out of time before sunset, but we ended at a cool little waterfall and took pics before heading back.










Just for fun (and so I didn't have to wait for the shoes on-shoes off routine), I piggy-backed Dave and A across the last crossing so they wouldn't have to take off their shoes again.

We watched the sunset at a little roadside park area and met an interesting couple from England who had sold everything they had to travel around NZ for a year.


They were both in their late 40's to early 50's and were hoping that they would be able to shack it up with their kids when they got back. We talked with them for the rest of sunset (while the guy oggled Dave's camera), hearing about their adventures around NZ and a flashback story about the time they hitch-hiked to India from England! It took them 4 months. Pretty impressive. They also told us about having to get retina scans in LA, just so that their plane could take off... they didn't have to get off the plane except to deal with this crap from our government. Ugh!

We also met a group of rowdy guys who caught an entire truckload of flounder on their boat. A and I questioned them a bit while Dave continued taking pics of the sunset.

They were pretty funny, but apparently they thought the same of us after I did my hip-toss-backflip with Dave and they took pics of us with their camera phones as they drove away. Since we were leaving at the same time, we thinkt hey thought we wanted to party cause they pulled over and hung out the window laughing at yelling at us, but we wanted to eat and sleep so we kept driving (boring..).

We got groceries in Thames and headed back to Dickson's to make some Pasta with cream sauce and sauted mushrooms. All the Maori (and a haole or 2) painter guys were up and drinking their favorite Waikato Draught (yum). We sat around and shot the breeze with them for the night, playing guitar and learning a couple of key Maori words such as Kiaora (key-or-ah, hello, thank you, aloha) and Ka kite (kah- key-tay, good-bye). Dave and A had wandered off with our new friend Clayton (the boss-man's son) so I was left to entertain the rest of them... I didn't do so well. they were disappointed with my non-wittyness and lack of ability to remember the two words they taught me. Consequently, I left (under the pretense of going to the bathroom) to grump at A and Dave for not coming back.

Talking with Clay and his friend, we learned that kiwis grow on vines and origonally came from China, where they are MUCH smaller. We talked about how Hawaiian and Maori are similar (both polynesian) and how they have enormous wild boar, a few deer, and are over run with the menace of the oppossum. We learned a new word.. cher (said kind of like "sure", but with a "ch" sound at the front), as in "cher, bro" which means hi, bye, ok, whatever.. We talked about the rivalry between NZ and the Aussies and laughed at their stupid aussie jokes.. dave was sad they didn't say "jumper" for hoodie.. "We're down with the American street lingo, bro." And finally, A had her first taste of the googely eyes.

To see all of the pics for Day 5, click here!