Day 7. Friday. Taihape to Otaki Beach.
Trip Start
Oct 09, 2010
1
7
23
Trip End
Oct 31, 2010
Otaki Beach, Wellington, New Zealand
Friday, October 15, 2010
We pass through a small town named Feilding, we are in luck because they have a huge farmer’s market every Friday, and today is Friday! The market doesn’t turn out to be enormous, a few stalls with local farmers selling fresh produce, meat, eggs, vegetables, baked goods, that sort of thing. Some of the items are expensive for us, but we do walk away with 6 savoury muffins and a packet of lamb sosaties. The town is charming; its clock tower is probably its biggest icon. Dirk and Steven found a restaurant in the same square as the farmer’s market, called "Quiet Woman". The artwork on the building shows a headless woman, holding her own head in her hand. Kim and I had to pose for photos galore in front of the restaurant, and despite the pretty clock and nice atmosphere when I think about Feilding I will always see the Quiet Woman first.
By 11:00 we are in Palmerston North, the biggest town we’ve seen since Hamilton. We park the vans and head off on foot to explore the town a bit. We manage to see a beautiful church, their morning service has just ended and so they allow us to go inside and take a few pictures. Churches and Cathedrals have always been my thing, I love to look at the pretty stained glass windows and the high ceilings.
Further down the street we wander into a huge bookshop called Whitecoulls, and that keeps all of us entertained for 30 minutes. There’s just not a lot to do here, we walk past shops and go into one or two, but there’s nothing that really grabs my attention. Nothing makes me feel like spending my money, NZ is definitely not the place to go for shopping. There really is nothing to buy, and you have to look hard to find a nice souvenir to take home.
Lunch is at a fabulous shop, it’s a carvery meal, the portions are big enough to share between two people. And it’s cheap, only $14 per plate so if two people share it’s about R35 each. The plates are absolutely loaded with roast meat, potatoes, peas, carrots and rice. Kim spotted this place earlier, and it was 100 times better than having a cheese sandwich again. It felt like Sunday lunch at your mother’s house, absolutely delicious.
After lunch we start driving again, and within an hour we find ourselves in Otaki, a seaside town that’ll be our stop for the night. I was really excited about having a coastal stop for one night, the only one scheduled for our trip. We’ve arrived far earlier than I anticipated, and it’s a tiny place. There’s not much to do once you get to Otaki, perhaps we should have wasted an hour or two along the way. But where?
We park at the beach, just to get the sand between our toes, but it’s miserable there. It’s extremely windy and we’re freezing. We’re all on the beach dressed in winter clothes and warm jackets, at one point I even put my gloves on. This is not the type of beach that we’re used to back home; I don’t think anyone ever swims in that water. It’s worse than Bloubergstrand. I had envisioned a nice beach braai, but I don’t see that happening now. The idea of sand on my flame-grilled tjoppie doesn’t appeal.
The campsite at Byron’s Resort is just a hundred metres from the beach, and we decide to go check in. Steven had spoken to the owner (also Michelle) during the day, to tell her about the situation with the suitcase in case the airline phoned again to hear if we are there. I’m sure he was hoping that his bag would be waiting for him when we got there, but unfortunately it wasn’t. This is now day 5 with the same clothes for him. It’s getting beyond a joke, in another week’s time they will be coming back home again. He hasn’t had the chance to wear any of the fancy thermal clothes he bought. But Michelle is very sweet and helpful; she really tries to help us and makes a few calls on Steven’s behalf. It sounds like the suitcase was flown from Auckland to Wanganui, the closest big airport in the southwest of NZ, but that’s still more than a 2 hour drive from where we are.
We go get our campsites (only $17 per site with free showers!), check out the facilities, and head back to the reception where the bar area is. Happy hour is about to start, but the fireplace is definitely the bigger motivator. It’s a homely sort of place, it’s cozy and warm and we just kick back and relax. Not even an hour later a car pulls up, and guess what? Steven’s suitcase has finally arrived! We all take photos of Steven with his suitcase, like he won the Lotto or something! At that point I felt like the trip really started, everyone was happy now. Steven was a good sport and handled it better than any of the rest of us would have done, but I could see that he was down sometimes. The rest of us spent a lot of time feeling sorry for him, almost feeling guilty for enjoying ourselves when he was having a hard time. But that was behind us now, and things could only get better. Right?
That evening after supper Dirk and I had a miscommunication and Dirk accidentally locked our keys inside the van. All the doors locked, of course. Its dark by now, after 9pm, it’s still very windy with patches of rain. The absolute worst time to run into this sort of problem.
The AA can help us, but it’s Friday evening and we would have to pay the weekend rate, and the after 8pm call-out fee. For this they only charge $300. I figure we’re better off staying in one of the cabins for $150 and call the AA in the morning when it’s much cheaper. But the boys disagree and proceed to try and break into our van with a wire hanger that they scored from Michelle. She must’ve thought we are the worst campers ever, our dramas were never ending. It only takes about forever, but they manage to break into the van and open the window. By then we’re all so tired that we fall straight into bed. Well, Dirk and I do. Weeks later we discover that this was the night when our esteemed camper-buddies managed to conceive the baby that they have been desperately trying to have. The genetic beginnings of baby Kate Gouws spent a few days with us in NZ, although at this point we don’t know it yet.
The next day will be a short drive of about 70km, into the capital city of Wellington and all the excitement that it supposedly has. The ironic thing about New Zealand is that you’re always so excited about what you’ll see on the next day of the trip, but meanwhile the days go by quickly and each day means one day closer to coming home again. We’ve almost reached the end of the first week already, but seen a lot and had a fantastic time!
