whee, part two! now i am up to january second, which is was napier and driving to taupo. we went to taupo just to break up our drive to new plymouth, but three canadians we met while staying in gisborne happened to be there as well. they invited us to meet up with them at a bar where a comedy show was to be going on starting at eight. i wasn't too keen, especially when we got there after nine and had to pay $5 (but at least we got a free speights for our money), and even told jack that $5 comedy couldn't be all that good. it was starting late though, so we actually didn't miss anything, and it really wasn't that bad. the emcee was probably the funniest and we spent the rest of the trip saying "you shouldn't have told me that!" and "bad choice!" to each other in bad german accents. one of the comedians was awful and even left the stage because some people were talking at the other end of the bar. overall though, it was worth going out for.
and then there was some drama involving people wanting to leave, others disappearing, etc., which we need not go into.
the next morning we were going to try to leave early so that we could get to new plymouth and do our last minute planning and shopping for our hike. however, as leah and i were packing the trunk (which often involved me getting INTO the trunk), we noticed a very fresh leak on the ground beneath vicky's car. which smelled an awful lot like gasoline. so before we could go anywhere, the car went to a garage and vicky charmed the mechanic to take a look at it straight away. the news was not so good. basically, someone messed with the fuel pipe and the weight of our stuff was cutting it in half. had we gone another 50k, we could have "blown up". we didn't want to ask exactly how much "blowing up" this would have been. (stephanie: maybe you could not tell mom and dad this? thanks!) he fixed it immediately because obviously the car was not drivable, but that meant we had to kill a few hours in taupo.
it also meant we got into new plymouth a few hours later than we meant to. but we learned that our first days hike, to holly hut, was only three hours so we could start out later in the day and be okay. we spent that night relaxing, then, and we went to the festival of lights in a local park. it was really cool, there was music and colored lights everywhere. jack and i, and a girl called anna (who took pictures of herself whenever she could) went early and took a boat out on the lake, and met up with vicky and leah a little bit later on. it was just a lot of fun, but then, i like things like lights!
the next morning was full of activity. we had some last minute things to buy, and an entire car full of groceries. ($224 worth in total at pak n' save.) we drove out to the north egmont visitor's center where we bought a second map, asked about the trails, and filled out our intentions form. and then we packed our bags. i'm not sure how we managed to fit everything in that we wanted to take, but we did. and at around 3 p.m., we started out for holly hut.
No comments:
Post a Comment