After spending several days relaxing and boozing in Paihia I'm on the road with the Kiwi bus headed for Rotorua. The bus crew is a smattering of German and Dutch girls traveling on their own and two herds of boys; one English and one Scottish. The boys are rowdy as shit, even by my standards, but everyone is good for a laugh and it's a good vibe on the bus.
Back in Paihia I fell in with another herd of English dudes and hung out with them and my room mate, an 18 year old spitting image of Tom Cruise in Risky Business. They were celebrating someone's birthday, Dirty Doctor Dave the Dentist, and we went down the road to a lovely pub called the Salty popular with local milfs and Mauri dudes. A total shit show of a night, flashes of high fiving dudes with three teeth and dancing on the tables. The English dudes and Tom Cruise wanted me to go on the Kiwi bus with them the next day but I could only imagine what a shit show it would be.
Sure enough later that day a fresh gang showed up in Paihia including James, a cheeky 19 year old from Essex, Shae a quiet chubby dude from Devon and Daniel and Matty, a couple boys from Yorkshire. We got on the piss pretty good, and I have since learned an incredible amount of Filthy Pommy words. It was live music night at the Beach house bar down the road from the Hostel so we headed down there. I called it an early night after the shenanigans from the night before but Daniel, Shae and Matty met up with some local guys and went back to their house to smoke.
Next thing I know, it's 6am and quiet Shae comes in zombie drunk as shit saying he'd been wandering around Paihia for 2 hours. The town is seriously 6 blocks long and all along a beach. o.O While making a good effort to be quiet despite his horrendous intoxication, he sits on his bottom bunk and glugs a litre of milk. Blech. An hour later his cell alarm goes off and he doesn't even wake up. James and I throw shoes and water bottles at his head but he's pretty much dead so James had to turn it off.
We run into Daniel and Matty later in the morning and apparently Shae got totally off his ass at the dudes house and passed out in a chair. They weren't able to wake him up and had to pick up the chair and toss him out of it to get him moving. On the walk home the three of them spotted some girls in a pool and Shae stripped down to skinny dip with them... and that's the last they saw of him for the night.
The bus from Paihia to Auckland was pretty chill, everyone was partied out and we slept mostly. Arrived back at the Base hostel and going stright to the pub I ran into Adie, my dear superwoman-wearing friend from last week. Had a pint with him and another English ginger dude by the name of Jed Bolt. That's right, Jed Bolt.
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Jed had been working on the south island at a ski lift for two years and it was his last night in NZ. He invited me out to dinner as he was keen to get down on some shellfish and we headed out to the fish market. It was seriously as if I had taken a taxi right back to Taiwan - freaky seafood in various tanks and bins: urchins, cod, clams, mussells, oysters, and crayfish, enormous fucking crayfish. These crayfish were priced at $58/ lb and the smallest one was 2lbs. So we sit down at a table and proceed to eat a crayfish sauteed with ginger and lime on noodles, oysters in the shell and clams in black bean sauce. All of this was paired with a fantastic Heather Hills Sav. Blanc we'd picked up earlier. Hands down - one of the top 10 meals I've had in my life. The next hour was filled with slurping from shells, cracking legs with our teeth and sipping. Unbelievable. Mr. Bolt was kind enough to foot the bill and we headed back to the hostel to go to the bar...
Partied with Adie and the English lads from the bus, got tons of drinks with the bartenders who lovingly call me "Anna from Canada" or "Canadianna" or "Canadanna", dance dance dance
Early early bus this morning, drove up to the top of Mount Eden in Auckland but couldn't see much of a view as it was pissing rain. Headed East and stopped at a town called Thames (named after the English river), kept driving to the hot water beach, which I was really looking forward to. How to rock the hot water beach:
1) Walk down the beach to where the signs are
2) Bury your feet in the sand until you feel heat
3) Dig a hole
4) Sit in the hole full of bejeesus hot water
I found a good setup with some local Kiwi dudes who had a tub right where the waves were coming in so it alternated hot and cold - fantastic. :-)
Went on a nature walk in the afternoon and checked out Cathedral Cove, a little beach tucked away with some cool rock formations.
Spending the night in Mercury Bay tonight at a small mom and pop backpacker hostel. Had a giant Spag Bol (Spaghetti Bolognese for us Canadians) and played pool and darts all night, how British haha. Ran into Jaekwan, a dude I met in Auckland, who told me he was on the tour earlier in the week and lost track of time while at Cathedral Cove and got left behind by the bus driver. Apparently he had to hitch hike into Mercury Bay and the dude in the car had a hand gun... :-S
Headed to Rotorua tomorrow for some hot springs. I booked an extra day there so I can have a spa day mwa ahaha Also very much looking forward to getting off the bus full of Scots and Brits and meeting a fresh batch of pals.
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