Katy's Oz-some Blog: Trapped in Thames

(The following post is very long but you will be rewarded at the end with pictures....you've been warned)

Ever seen that Nicholas Cage, Jon Lovitz & Dana Carvey movie "Trapped in Paradise"? Of course not, no one has except my family. Its a really funny movie and it kept coming to mind last week when we couldn't seem to escape Thames, the town our car broke down in. We originally hoped to be there 1 day (we werent planning on stopping there at all but our van had different plans) and ended up staying 4.

As I wrote in a previous blog the Toyota place couldn't work on it Friday. So after hanging out in the Toyota showroom drinking free tea and reading for 2 hours we explored Thames, all of it. All 1 main road. And the "mall" which had about 9 stores. Sarah and I invented our own game where we said what American store the NZ mall store most resembled. As I recall they included Rave, Hot Topic, PacSun, Walmart, Gadzooks. Oh and the highlight was seeing that you could take "professional" baby pictures smack dab in the middle of the food court but you had to choose between the "white fur heaven" and "formal because its black" backgrounds. Lovely. We killed time in the Walmart (here known as Warehouse) and you bet we checked out the aisle labeled "Vases and Urns".

We stayed in the Sunkist Backpackers hostel and bonded with Nina the dog. (Pronounced Neena). Had yummy Italian pizza for dinner and called it a night. Most places in Thames, correction in New Zealand, close early...like 8pm. So usually we have no choice but to go to bed at a reasonable hour.

Saturday we took the bus up to Whitianga (pronounced Fit-e-anga) and checked in to our next hostel, the Cats Pyjamas. Yes, that is how they spell pajamas. They also spell tires, tyres. It was pouring rain when we got there so we immediately decided to stay 2 nights since we didn't have to hurry back to our non-working van and we didn't want to go to the beach in the yucky weather. We ate lunch (split a lamb burger which was actually pretty good but the ketchup here tastes really weird...like it has cinnamon in it or something). Then we went to the local cinema and saw Revolutionary Road. This theater, unlike others we have come across, had more than 2 show times a day! After the movie we hung out at the hostel and I got the lowdown from a local on all the celebrities on New Zealand's Dancing With The Stars.

Sunday the 15th we walked to the Whitianga Wharf to catch the passenger ferry across the harbor. We met our taxi driver for the day, Paul, and we drove us (along with a Slovakian girl our age named Verrrrronica and an older lady from Holland named Alice) first to Cathedral Cove. After a 45 minute nature walk/hike we reached Cathedral Cove, which is characterized by its giant limestone arch caved out by the waves. There is beach on either side of the arch. Inside the arch there was a penguin! I was super excited to see a penguin, but sad when I realized that it was sick and that's why it didn't mind being in the middle of all the tourists. There were more people on the tiny Cathedral Cove beach then Ive seen for a week and a half in all of New Zealand!

Next Paul drove us to Hot Water Beach, which was true to its name. 2 hours either side of low tide you can dig a hole near the hot springs and create your own hot water tub! The middle of where the spring ran down was so hot the sand was actually boiling! We dug ourselves a hole and relaxed...for a few minutes until you had to dig some more to keep yourself somewhat covered in the water. It was a really neat experience.

After our day at the beaches (props to the sun for coming out for us!) we had a delicious dinner at a local Indian place. SO good!

Monday we caught the bus back to Thames. Les, the mechanic working on our car, met us at the bus stop and told us we still was working on the radiator and it would be another day. So we checked back into the hostel and I started a puzzle. Afterall we had already seem all tiny Thames had to offer (at least twice), and I didn't want to spend all my money on internet.

Tuesday it took me about half a day to realize it was St. Patrick's Day. I'm not sure what Patrick is a Saint of, but it certainly isn't used cars. You know its not good when the mechanic makes a house call to come tell you the bad news in person. The overheating had caused MASSIVE damage to the engine and it was likely to cost more to repair than we paid for the car. After giving us a demonstration of the problem (the radiator spewed water out all over the place) he called our insurance, only to find out it was only liability, not mechanical insurance. Awesome. So basically our option was to pay more money to see if the car could even be saved, or just give up. Sarah politely asked Les to set the car on fire since our insurance covered fire damage, but he didn't. In the end we decided to just see if a wrecker would give us any money for the van. We stayed one more night in Thames...making this night 4 in the same small city. Needless to say we were ready to move on! We were becoming friends with the locals...someone actually honked "hello" at us as they were driving through town, and I said Hi to the local video store lady where we used the internet.

Wednesday morning we FINALLY left Thames, and made sure to give our van the one finger salute on the way out. We took the bus to a suburb of Auckland and hauled all our baggaged about 10 blocks to the van rental place. We are renting a Wicked Van which are pretty popular around here and very noticable as they are each spray painted differently. Thankfully ours is one of the more subdue ones. The back says "Here for a good time...not for a long time". I've seen others with South Park characters on them, the Beatles, the Gorillaz, marijuana references, etc. So we lucked out with our design. Ill post pictures later. We drove from Auckland to Waitomo Caves and we are calling this part of our trip "New Zealand Take 2". So far so good. We even have a radio in this car! And a/c, not that we need it. Oh and power windows! The back is like a bed, similar to our first one and we camped out last night and probably will the rest of the time to save some of the money we lost by buying a complete lemon.

So we got to Waitomo Caves last night and parked it (literally!) at a campground. There was a local school on a field trip at our camp and they put on a talent show last night so that provided some pretty funny entertainment. Sarah and I attempted to go on a night walk to see glowworms but it was really dark and scary so after we saw some we had enough and hastily walked back. (It was a mapped out walk and the campground provided the flashlights but there is just something about walking in the dark, through the forest, when no one knows you are out there/isnt expecting you back that gets a little spooky). It rained all night and the rain sounded like someone was dropping marbles on a tin roof right above my head.

This morning we packed up and headed 1 km down the road to the Legendary Black Water Rafting Company. Thats right, we were going blackwater rafting! Waitomo Caves is famous for their extensive underground caves and large glowworm colonies. Glowworms are fly larvae that glow in the dark (its actually their poo that glows) to attract food. We suited up in very fashionable THICK wetsuits, had a quick training session and set off. We hiked a bit through the underground caves (our helmets had lights to show the way) then we had to jump backwards off a few waterfalls and floated some of the way. It was SO cool. A couple of times we all turned our lights off and just floated in the pitch dark and looked up to admire the massive amounts of glowworms. They looked like millions of green stars arranged in constellations. It was unreal. There weren't any rapids but jumping off the waterfalls was enough for me! At the end we all turned our lights off and navigated via touch through a tunnel and out the other end of the cave.

After warming up with complimentary hot showers, soup and bagels Sarah and I drove our graffiti van 3 hours South to Wanganui. We are trying to be in Wellingtown by the 21st so we have a few days to spend there before catching our ferry to the South Island on the 23rd. We went in the biggest Pak N Sav grocery store Ive ever seen, then played on a giant swing above the river, then grilled dinner at the campground. So far at the campground Ive seen a goat, 3 rabbits roaming around (I almost kicked one in the dark on the way back to the van) and an aviary with tons of birds! The campgrounds are really nice and clean so I dont feel like Ive been living in our car.

So thats what we've been doing the last week or so. Sorry its so long but I hadn't posted in awhile. Here are some pictures to accompany this last week!