Saturday, April 4: Fine & warm with variable cloud

Beki’s (airbnb, $50)

The two Japanese guests had gotten up very early to catch the sun rise and there wasn’t much to do for breakfast, apart from also frying the sandwiches for lunch. Showed Nissi and Chisato some of my photos on facebook (startrailing the clouds, and lightning) and they immediately signed up as friends. As I speak no Japanese, their banter was just background, but every now and then they would discuss some English word or grammatical question (“disgusting” seemed to be quite a favourite, and “He’s mean, isn’t he?” was also high on the agenda) indicating that he was trying to show off his knowledge of the language. In any case 10:00 was approaching, so I threw all of my things together, then packed my stuff out of the fridge into the chilly bin. I went and found Ron to pay him for his efforts and we had a chat about walking in the Waitakere. Then I was headed in the direction of Opua.

Ferry was waiting when I got there and I was immediately let on. First stop was Kawakawa for a visit of the Hundertwasser loo and a brief look at a couple of shops. Saw that the steam train was going to roll @ 10:45, which wasn’t that long to wait and caught it a couple of times on its way down the main street. Then it was on to Hikurangi where I put in a first call to MH, but needed the reference number as well, so I would have to call again later. Then to Sandy Beach.

The beach was pretty well populated today and the surf was up – possibly too much for body surfing, although the waves were still breaking fairly evenly. There were a lot of people on boards out there, and a person hiring them on the beach. I went down to the newly constructed loos to change. Dumped my clothes & towel on the beach and took off for the water.

I didn’t last five minutes. Jumping over one crashing wave I landed on the troublesome left foot setting off a massive calf cramp. The best I could do was try to stand up and hobble out of the water. Changed back into the dry stuff, reparked the car closer to the picnic area and ate my sandwiches in ignomy.

I still needed to kill some time, so it was off to the Whangarei Falls for a couple of time lapses (parking “ambassadors” on duty telling you where to park, but generally on the lookout for people interfering with parked cars). Made it down very painfully to the falls – looks like every time the car jolted the cramp sprang back up again. Anyhow back at the car I took off for town and saw a Mobil station with #91 for $1.6 and I still had a 4c voucher so I filled up the tank. The last 1,000 km look like having been done @ 5.7 L/100 km.

In town I found a Pak’n’Save, checked some prices, bought some bread and lemonade, visited the i-site, but the only wifi seemed to be at the council offices/library. Phoned MH and got the flight confirmed, went down to the library; found the hotspot but couldn’t connect without Windows insisting I should turn the hotspot off and on again (yeah, right). Had a look around town but nothing much was open and after 20 minutes had to get on the road to Mangawhai.

On the way through Waipu, dropped off Michael’s equipment at a courier depot and then it was further along the winding road. First drove past this place as it is well hidden, but then found it with Beki and her spaniel Pebbles cleaning up after last night’s guests. Dinner was BBQ pork fried rice from the Chinese takeaway in the village for $11.9 (Tau Lin Chinese Takeaway, 7/6 Molesworth Drive, “The Hub”).