Paihia
Trip Start
Jul 12, 2006
1
109
230
Trip End
Jun 18, 2007
Paihia,
New Zealand
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Bearing it mind it was about 11am I guess it was no surprising that the traffic was a bit of a mare and that the parking was even worse. We managed to find a road near some of the main hostels on Fort Street, with parking meters. $4 an hour - ouch! We parked up and I stuck some money into the meter then dashed off to the hostels to put the ads up. When I had only 1 ad left I went back to the car then Lee dashed off to find a photocopiers. I was waiting with the car as it had all our worldy goods on show and Auckland is Car theft central so I was worried someone might break in. I was hanging around outside the car, drinking some juice when I kept noticing this man lookinga bit shady. Living in London your whole life tunes you into dodgy people. Anyway, he kinds of kept looking and woudl then turn away. I decided to get back into the car and finish my juice in there, a few moments later I could see in the wing mirror this bloke approaching the car. And that's when I realised that he was a traffic warden. They don't look as obvious as the ones in London. They wear blue shorts and blue tops, none of this yellow and black lark. Anyway, I have never been so glad that I'd paid for parking in my life. I could see the fat gits smug face, tapping his little ticket machine while walking up to the car, probably rehersing in his head what he was going to say to me, unfortunately for him the last laugh was on me because when we got to the windscreen of the car and saw we'd paid the smug grin was completely wiped off his face. He looked like he'd just come down on Christmas morning to find nothing under the Christmas Tree - Hah! He kind of skulked away, walking to the ticket machine, pressed a few buttons then went on his was checking other cars.
We had about 2 minutes left when Lee came dashing around the corner with new copies in hand. We left Fort street and the chubby traffic warden and headed up Queen St a bit towards some other hostels. There were three places all quite close together but no parking so Lee had to make a loop around the block then we spotted a parking space, Unfortunately it was service goods only - 5 minutes - at all times. We still stopped anyway as I dashed in and out of the hostels. Just as I came out the last one I spotted a mini hitler traffic warden coming straight for us. I literally jumped in the car and screamed at Lee to put his foot down saying the traffic man was coming. "Where? I can't see any man?" Lee started to say "Just Go!" I yelled, and off he went just as the traffic guy was stepping off the curb to cross the road. "There, that traffic guy" I said... just as Lee spotted him. Honestly the traffic wardens over here are just too on the job, they must get paid by commission or something. It was a right nightmare.
After this little escapade we decided to get the hell out of Auckland and head to the Bay of Islands further North. We navigated back to the motorway and jumped on. It was such a nice day as well and the drive to Paihia was beautiful.
We had one phone call about the car en route but we couldnt' turn back as we'd driven quite far as it was. It took us about 4 hours with a couple of stops but we arrived in Paihia in the early afternoon. The sun was out and the temperature was really warm it was lovely.
As we drove along the last part we drove through fields of lovely spring flowers, we had the windows down and the air was filled with this lovely comforting warm sweet smell. It made you want to shut your eyes and imagine yourself lying in a meadown on a lovely summers day, surrounded by flowers, blue skies with a light breeze that's warm and holds the scent of the flowers around you. That's what it was like in the car. The road was lined with such pretty flowers, spring flowers, blue, red, yellow. There was definily honeysuckle in there somewhere, you could smell it. I didn't shut my eyes though because that might have been dangerous at 100km/p/hr on a main road.
Paihia is a lovely place, I can see why my Sis lived here for a bit. It's right on the coast and a very small place, literally with just a few streets and some hills.
We booked into the Mousetrap hostel which was lovely. It was also a hostel that didn't take any sort of Kiwi Experience or Stray etc... buses, which is a big bonus in our book. We bagged a lovely double room which was on the top floor meaning we had a view of the bay and the water from our room as well as the outdoor balcony bit.
When my sister lived here she worked on a boat cruise called the Rock, so we booked that through our hostel for the next day. For the rest of the day we generally just chilled, enjoyed the sunshine, sorted out our bags for the trip and had some food. The hostel is right opposite a few of the main bars in Paihia. So when the sun went down we headed to the Pipi Patch, the local Kiwi Experience bar, to claim our 2-4-1 beers. It amazes me how many people managed to travel and still look so glam. I may have moaned about this before but it does bug me. How do this teenages manage to keep their white clothes white? how do they managed to travel with such chunky belts and necklaces? and toenail polish? most of them have the entire collection of boots make up counters on their faces. I mean where do they all put it? None of them look like they haven't washed their clothes for a week and none of them look like they've had to use one bar of soap to wash face, bum and hair. It really gets my goat. I don't know where I'm going wrong!
Once I'd sulked into my beer about how glam everyone else looked (to Lee who has no sympathy for me at all because he's been wearing exactly the same clothes everyday since we arrived (well not exactly the same clothes, he has spare white t-shirts and his trousers have been washed - just exactlty the same combination of clothes) we headed to the Salty for a quick beer. This is meant to be the place to go but on a Tuesday night it was dead as a dodo so we headed around the back to the Sand Pit for an hour of pool and some more beer.
I think this is my favourite place in the North Island so far.I felt a little bit sad today though, partly because our trip is coming to an end and party because my Sis used to live and work here and I really wish she was here now. I can't believe how quick time is going this end, way way to fast really.
But at least we've found some good weather at last, the week before we leave but nevermind! Lets hope it continues.
