Rainy rain rain
Trip Start
Jul 12, 2006
1
106
230
Trip End
Jun 18, 2007
Corramandel,
New Zealand
Saturday, November 18, 2006
The journey north was crazy, it didn't stop raining at all. It just poured and poured all the way. We stopped at Whenukite, which is 6km away from Hot Water Beach and Cathedral Caves, at the Seabreeze holiday park to look at a room
Busy hot water beach
. It was fine but it was still early so we decided to head into Whangimati for a look around before deciding where to stop. Whangimati is a small town but it was packed. We went to a few hostels but they were all full. It was a nice enough town but I couldn't believe how busy it was. We were directed to a hostel that did have a double room but it was quite a bit more than the one at Whenukite and the laundry (which we desperately needed - again!) was a bit more expensive than Seabreeze. We thought about it a lot because we really didn't know what to do, we had a little walk around in the rain trying to decide what would be best to do but really couldn't make up our minds. The double room seemed to be the last bed available in Whangimati but the town wasn't that big and we'd have to drive back to Whenukite anyway tomorrow. In the end we headed to the pub for a few drinks, I was on the softies so I could drive, and decided we'd go back to Seabreeze. It was still raining so there didn't seem much point in paying more for a room just because it's in a town when we couldn't appreciate the town. So back to Whenukite I drove, we checked into a 4 bed dorm but luckily no one else was in it. The 'hoilday park' consisted of a lodge plus some camp spots and a few campervan hook ups. It wasn't too busy, 4 German fruit pickers, an old couple, a random bloke with guitar and a Middle Eastern couple in a camper van. I cooked up dinner, nice comments again on my cooking from Middle Eastern couple, then we settled in the TV lounge for the night
Cathedral cove
. We were watching the US Fear Factor on TV, it was grim. It was a twins special and at one point (you might want to skip this if you're eating brekkie) they made they wade through water than consisted of old cow bits, like the insides of cows - bladders, hearts, kidneys, just random bits of raw cow. Then the contestants had to bite bits of rotting meat off of cow bones (maggots included), keep the meat in their mouth while they waded through the cow bits water, the they had to spit the meat into a mincer, make a shake out of the rotting meat and then drink it without being sick. I'm sorry to describe this in such graphic detail, it wasn't the nicest thing to watch but it was mildly amusing to watch (through my hands) just to see how unbelievable stupid people can be. They contestants were doing it for $50,000. I'm sorry but I wouldn't do it for any amount of money, surely no one is that desperate you would think, but you'd be wrong because 4 sets of twins attempted it. The reasons I'm telling you this (and it's not to make you cringe) is because Lee and I were watching this but when the cow bit came on the Middle Eastern gentleman, who was probably middle aged, told Lee off for watching it, he said it was disgusting and to put something else on. "Isn't there a 24hr News channel?" he asked. I'm not sure if he thought he was in a motel rather than a hostel or something but Lee changed the channel anyway. It was quite funny, the guy was absolutely appalled at what he was watching.We spent the rest of the evening watching TV, drinking beer and eating chocolate. I'd put the washing on but the drier was awful, it was one of these ones that worked on a time so if you didn't get the coins in at the right time it'd just go cold. We spent about $8 on drying before giving up and hanging it out in our room praying that no one else would check in the dorm. So when we went to bed it was like sleeping in a Chinese laundry.
