Paihia

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  Paihia, New Zealand
Wednesday, April 26, 2006

It was a nice feeling to be able to lie in bed this morning, without having to worry about checking out or missing the bus. Although we were still showered and down for breakfast by 9.30am, which I think is pretty impressive. There had been lots of heavy rain through the night, so much so that it actually kept me awake for a little while, however we were greeted by bright sunshine and blue skies overhead when we stepped outside. Today was ANZAC day, which was a national holiday that recognised the massive sacrifices made by the combined forces of New Zealand and Australia during both World Wars. As a result many shops were shut until 1pm in respect of the parades that took place on this day, a little like Rememberance Sunday at home.

After saying goodbye to the friends that we'd made in the last few days because they were heading back to Auckland, Lynne and I ventured in Paihia to properly explore the town. It turned out that not everything was shut up, so Lynne finally had a chance to sample New Zealand's most popular ice cream flavour, Hokey-Pokey. I had a small taste of it when I briefly managed to wrestle it away from Lynne and can confirm that it tastes quite a lot like butterscotch but a lot nicer than that. Sitting in the sunshine we saw a lot of people walking past us wearing poppies and a few veterans who were proudly displaying their medals.

Today was the last time that we were going to be in a town that had an internet cafe that would accept the free tokens that Lynne had been given in Rotorua, so despite the lovely weather outside we reluctantly decided that we'd better use them up. As it was $6 dollars per hour to go online at Paihia Photos, we were glad that we did have some complimentary hours to use. At the moment I've started to feel like it's time to come home, which is how I feel whenever we're almost at the end of our time in a country. I know that when I arrive in the new country that those feelings will go away, but at the moment any news or emails from home are welcome (not that there have been many of those received recently, you bastards!).

After a couple of hours updating my journal and once again admiring Lynne's skydive photographs, we decided it was far to nice a day to waste inside, so we ventured back out into the sunlight and had another leisurely stroll around Paihia. Unfortunately I never managed to speak directly to my ex-next door neighbours, so sadly we're not going to get the opportunity to meet up with them on this trip. It was a bit difficult to make arrangements really when they had no way to return my messages, also they do run a guest-house so that must take up 110 per cent of their time. Still the next time that they're in England we will definitely meet up.

On our way back to the hostel, we stopped off at a bar for something to eat, forgetting that as it was a national holiday there was a 15% surcharge on any food and drink that we ordered. Not wanting to pay that on every drink we had that afternoon, we popped into the local liquor store for some beer and girlie drinks for Lynne, who temporarily went weak at the knees when she saw a couple of young sailors in their uniforms buying cigarettes.

As regular readers of this journal will know by now, lunchtime drinking simply makes me want to fall asleep, so as a result I struggled to do anything productive for the rest of the day. I finished off the latest book that I've been reading and was going to do the laundry, but found out that it cost $4 dollars for a wash and another $4 dollars for a drying cycle. So to save money I decided that it would be fine for me to continue wearing my less flattering t-shirts until we reach Auckland.

That evening we loitered around the kitchen/TV lounge area without much purpose and with nobody to talk to because we didn't know the latest bunch of people staying at the hostel. We tried to watch Notting Hill, but all the good seats were taken and we didn't really want to sit on the floor. So we retired to our room to watch the video footage that we'd taken in Fiji and our first few days in New Zealand. So as you can imagine that was a very good cure for insomnia and we were soon fast asleep.

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