Sam had been very gracious about all the hikes I'd been dragging him on, so I figured it was time to look for some surf again. Everyone we'd met raved about Taranaki, a big volcano on the west coast of the North Island which formed a big peninsula with a million surf spots. We decided to skip Wellington again (we would live to regret this for a number of reasons) and started driving towards Taranaki. Unfortunately we'd forgotten that it was now Friday night so we inched out of town in heavy traffic and eventually stopped at Hatamangi beach caravan park. Usually we have a policy of driving through all caravan parks before we pay, but this place looked nice enough so I just paid up front. D'oh! Sure it was a nice park but there was not one but three high school girls' volleyball teams staying there! No showers for me! Eventually I just showered in the mens while Sam kept a lookout. Later we got to talking with the chaperones and they were all quite nice, though all suffering from the cold. We were glad we weren't the only ones who thought it was freezing! I guess we were too late to catch warm weather even on the North Island. The chaperones explained to us that they call high school "college" here, clearing up some confusion. This is just one of many strange kiwisms! Others include: appetizers are called "entrees" and "lucked out" means "out of luck." ("Lucked in" means "lucked out.")
Anyway, the next morning we fled towards Taranaki to continue our oddysey of horrible surf. There was no swell whatsoever. After some driving around we finally found some waves at a crowded beach in New Plymouth, which is Taranaki's big town. Sam went out to fight the crowds while I went for a run. Then we drove around looking for a beach shower. After Australia, we couldn't believe that such a popular beach in a big town didn't have a beach shower! Or even a bathroom! Not so much as a port o' potty! I think all the locals must have had at least one friend with a house within walking distance from the beach or something. Anyway we finally found a beach with a shower, and then we headed out to a smaller town to sleep at the marine park. All the locals were out there fishing all night. We felt a little out of place in our campervan but at least it was clearly ok to stay the night.
The next morning the swell was the same, so poor Sam got to do another hike: the Whitecliffs Walkway on the north end of the peninsula. This was an awesome walk along the beach with 100m cliffs looming overhead. I was a little uneasy since the beach was impassable at high tide and I did not enjoy the thought of trying to climb the cliffs with surf crashing around me. Partway along the walk we came upon a poor dead lamb who had clearly taken the short way down the cliffs - not a pretty sight! But we hit low tide perfectly and had plenty of time to spare when we made it to the escape route, an old tunnel for driving stock down to the beach.
Then we started on the inland part of the loop hike, listed as "moderate" in the guide book. Ah those kiwi hikers! "Moderate" turned out to mean a series of stairways, usually about 10 to 20 flights each, going up and down steep hills all the way back - and the stairways were the easy part! The hard part was super-steep slippery grass. Sam wanted to go back to the beach but I was nervous about the tide so we kept going, and eventually made it out to a series of farms, where we admired some strange shaggy cattle. I guess they love their sheep so much in NZ they even breed their cattle for wool! No wonder the lamb gave up on life! It couldn't stand the competition!
In our usual tradition of wearing poor Sam out with long hikes followed by long drives, we headed for the east coast. We stopped at a town known for its natural hot springs. We debated whether to pay for the spa there, but eventually decided just to go straight to the caravan park, which turned out to be a good idea since even the caravan park had a hot pool. Sweet! The next morning we made it to Whangamata, another famous surf spot. Here there was a swell, but the conditions were stormy. Instead we spent the day figuring out how to call home since it was Mom's birthday. We eventually found that they sell SIM cards in appliance shops and got an international calling card which we put too much money on, so we ended up with thousands of minutes. We decided to spend some of the money calling Laos to get the phone number of Sam's cousin in New Zealand. Sam was sure the cousin lived in Auckland, so we figured we could visit on our way back north. But guess what - the cousin lived in Wellington! Augh there is just no avoiding that town!
But first, we had to check out the famous Hotwater Beach, where you could surf, then dig a pit in the sand at low tide and it would fill with hot water welling from a natural spring below the sand. We had to wait for l
ow tide the next morning though. When we arrived the tide was nice and low and there was a big crowd of tourists diligently digging with rented shovels. We decided to watch for a bit before renting our own shovel, and got lots of entertainment out of watching because the swell was still high so every 2 minutes or so a wave would come in and wash out all the pits. We alternated between watching this, and watching surfers get pummeled by whitewater, for the next hour or so. You have to admit both the surfers and the diggers were persistent! But eventually we started to look like total jerks laughing at everybody, so we headed back to Wellington. We made it in quite late, in the pouring rain, and since we were going to get soaked regardless, we eventually parked by the railroad tracks and went straight to bed.
The next day we called up Sam's cousin and went to visit him at his house, which turned out to be nearby. I showered while Sam and his cousin talked in Laotian - I suddenly realized how much Laotian I had forgotten! Sam's cousin had stayed in the Thai refugee camps for 15 years longer than Sam, and had only come to New Zealand 10 years ago. We got to learn the downside of New Zealand: low salaries, a slow economy, and not very many jobs. Sam's cousin took us to check out the Wellington museum, Te Papa, and cooked us a tasty Laotian dinner of bamboo shoot soup, sticky rice, and poua (pronounced "powah") which is basically kiwi abalone. It was quite delicious and apparently you can obtain the bigger ones from illegal poua rings. That's right - we'd finally found the Ring of Poua! Ok, ok, really bad pun, sorry. The next day the weather stayed wet, so we hung out with the family for a bit, then headed back north out of Wellington - yeah, again.
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