Dragonboating in the Rain
Trip Start
Sep 05, 2007
1
48
71
Trip End
May 01, 2008
Tauranga,
New Zealand
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
I went to a Maori thing the night I was in Rotorua. We got to see an old Maori village, a Haka, and got to eat some food. The meal was all-right; turkey, roast, potatoes, salad and steamed pudding for dessert. Maori dinner? I guess a traditional English dinner is better than eating rats and small birds like the Maori did.
I got back into Tauranga late Sunday night. I had taken the Naked Bus in to town because it was uber-cheap ($5 from Roto-Vegas). The problem was that I had to stop in Cambridge for 2 hours. There is not much to do in Cambridge on a Sunday night when it's raining
Karangahaki Hole
. Especially when weighed down by a half-tonne of luggage. So I sat in the bus shelter for pretty much the whole time, taking an opportunity to visit Cambridge's "Super-Loo"; their public toilets.I got back into Tauranga about 9. By this time the cyclone that was passing by was obvious. It was dark, dumping rain and windy as hell. I was supposed to meet Nathan at the bus stop so I gave him a couple rings on the way into town, while still on the bus. No ringing, it went directly to voicemail. I waited in town for a half hour before finally trying some hostels. They were all closed, but I finally managed to get a place in Harbourside. It later turns out that I just missed Nathan, before and after I was there. His phone was toast.
I was careful to request a room without an en suite (rooms with en suits in hostels are shite, dirty, smelly and poorly lit). This time I was pleasantly surprised by how clean the room and the public bathroom was. Plus my new room-mates didn't smell like a rotting carcase.
I walked into the kitchen to put away my foodstuff. "Hey, you fucking coon!" The dutch aren't very pc. Jaimy was beaming with pride about his new word
Another Karangahaki Hole
. Sort of like a two-year-old that ties his shoes for the first time. Jaimy and Camiel were in town on their farewell tour before leaving. I'm glad I caught them before taking off. We caught up and went for a couple drinks and played one last game of poker the next night before they took off.I've been staying at Nathan's since. He was nice enough to put me up in his place. I can't describe how nice a real bed and a real shower is after staying in hostels, on floors and on couches for so long. I'm also fortunate to have snagged a company car for the week or so that I'm working. I've used it once or twice to hit the beach.
Nathan's place is pretty nice, and working with the same guy you live with hasn't been that bad. Nathan's place is pretty clean, but he still seems to have a roach problem. I've killed at least 1 a night since being there. The buggers seem to like my room for some reason, and I've beaten a number into the carpet after they've jumped off the wall at me (I didn't think roaches could jump. They may be going for my eyes, trying to get revenge for their dead brethren, but they more or less flop onto the floor, where I quickly beat them to death with a sneaker. You'd be surprised how many wallops the 2-inchers can take before finally becoming immobilized)
Hangi 1
.Work has been allright. I've been working long hours trying to get the job done on time. I've managed to injure myself a couple of times by dropping a really large penetrometer on my foot and squishing my finger. The penetrometer went right through my bood and mad a nice hole in my sock and my foot, luckily it bled well enough that it cleaned itself out and I didn't get an infection (I couldn't go home to clean it, a contractor was waiting on me). I was happy to find that I didn't break my foot. A second bit of bad luck happened when I lost a $2000 dollar piece of equipment down a test pit. It seems everyone knows me as the Canadian who keeps coming back, busted his foot up with the Scala and lost our shear-vane. I keep getting looks of surprise from people; "I thought you left... again...". I think they're mostly just teasing and think that they may have hooked a "lifer". I still feel pretty shit over loosing the shear-vane though.
Saturday I was recruited into rowing for Beca's dragon boat team. I've never been near a dragon-boat before, but they were desperate for rowers, so I signed up. It was raining cats-and-dogs that day. Everyone was cold. It was miserable.
We went into the competition not expecting to win a single race
Hangi 2
. We had just thrown together a team and were still one man short. A number of us had no practice, and we were all thinking of getting drunk and making fools of ourselves. The first race was my learning experience, we almost gave up due to the lack of a rower, but one of the organisers decided to help us with our empty spot. On the way out to the start, I kept splashing the guys behind me, which made me feel kind of sheepish, then something amazing happened; we won the race. We actually won the race by a long shot. The next race we placed second in, a very respectable position given that our opponents were pretty good. The third race was cancelled so we went straight to the finals, making it into the grand final race (5 out of 43), where we managed to place 4th overall. Not bad for a bunch of beginners. I even won a big stainless steel juicer (which Nathan inherited. I told him he could re-gift it if he wanted)! Tomorrow is my last day of work. And the day that I give up the car. It's all winding down to an end. The end of my New Zealand life is in sight, which is a very funny feeling. Hopefully the weather turns up by the time I get back to the life of a backpacker.
