The Rock
Trip Start
Jul 12, 2006
1
110
230
Trip End
Jun 18, 2007
Paihia,
New Zealand
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Dolphins under the boat
We had a little wander about, found the wharf where our trip departed then headed back to the hostel for lunch. Natasha gave me a book in Fiji that I still hadn't read so while we were chilling at the hostel I managed to find time to read it, which was great really, because it means I can pass it onto someone else before we leave hopefully.
Corona and our stuff was left at the hostel, while we walked back into town for our trip. We made a quick pitt stop at a waterfront bar for a quick game of pool, a pint and a burger before walking down to the Wharf. We did ask the barman if he had a copy of the paper to check the weather, he said no he didn't have a copy and that it did't matter anyway because the weather reports in there were never right anyway - too true!
We headed down to the Wharf and waited for the little tender craft to come and pick us up. Lee and I were discussing what we'd rather, a boat full of oldies or a boat full of young 'uns. We were hoping the trip wouldn't be like the Aquapackers and full of boring 20 year old Uni graduates but we were also hoping that it wouldn't be an oldie trip from hell either. Luckily we were surprised with a decent mix of people.
Peter, the Skipper and Tom came to pick the first load up and take us to the boat
Fishing at sunset off the back of the rock
. Which it turns out used to be an old Car Ferry. We climbed aboard the Rock and were introduced to the crew - Sophie, Yvonne and JJ. Yvonne showed us to our rooms and we'd been upgraded to a double room -wooohooo! We;ve been getting really luckly on our boat trips. It was a lovely room with doors that opened out onto the side of the boat and in the cabin itself there was plenty of room and a real double bed. The cabins had been built on top of the boat so that everyone got a good view and IMO it works.Once we were all settled into our rooms and packed lunches were safely in the cool box, Peter welcomed us to the boat properly and gave us a quick run down of what was goign to happen. We'd seen the leaflet and it was packed with activities, they all seemed really good but Lee and I were sceptical that we'd do them all. Well, right away once we'd all got a beer in hand the shooting competiton started. We were divided up into boys and girls, a plastic bottle was tied to some rope and then chucked from the back of the boat so it trailed behind us and then we all got 2 shoots each with an air rifle to shoot at it. Lee was up first and did a sterling job by hitting it 2 out of 3 times. I blame it on a mispent youth and arcade games :)
I went about 5th on the girls team but managed to hit the bottle once which was a big bonus for me because I was a complete girl about the whole shooting thing, I didn't hold the gun properly and it was really heavy so I couldnt' aim properly, plus the bottle was bouncing all about over the waves and didn't keep still so I thought I did pretty good
Flipper and a rainbow
. In face I know I did pretty good because my one hit was good enough to put me into a shoot-off with 4 other girls. Unfortunately I came 5th as I missed the bottle completely in this round. Lee, however, did really well and won the comp straight out for the boys, he won a Heiniken and was really chuffed.Once we were done with the shooting out came the fishing rods and bate. Everyone that wanted to fish was allowed to. It was great. We were using marlin for the bait and Peter gave us a few tips on how to fish. You could feel the fish nibbling at the bate but I could never quite get one. I was really disappointed because any that we caught were going on the barbecue for dinner later. I think a few people caught some but all I managed to do was feed the fish lots of food.
While we were all fishing the crew did a fine job of gettin the food ready and once Peter had finished on the barbecue we sat down to a feast of steak, sausages, mussels plus lots of salad and potatoes. it was delicious. As we were eating dinner a list came around for the night kyaking. This was to see the phsoflouresence. I don't think i've spelt that correctly but basically it's all the neon planckton in the water that glows at night, plus the fish glow as well. It was one of the top things I'd done
Hole in the rock, from a distance
. I wasn't convinced at first, I didn't really fancy getting in the water with it being so dark, i didn't know how i'd see everyone to follow them, plus the water was cold and the boat wasn't. BUt I am so glad I went, I wouldn't have wanted to miss it for the world. I didn't have to worry about trying to follow the kayaks because when you paddle in the water the phsofo thingys glow bright neon, they leave a trail in the water like magic pixie dust. It looked like tinkerbell had been swimming in the water, it was mesmarising (bad spelling again i know!). I couldnt take my eyes off of it. It was almost like something magical was happening. You could follow the trail really clearly and when we got away from the boat and hte light pollution you could also see the fish simming about underneath the boat and jumping out the water, it was like a fish firework display, only more stunning than you could ever imagine. it was wonderful, and if that wasn't enough of a treat up above in the sky was the most amount of stars you could ever wish to see.After about half an hour we had to paddle back to the boat. I really didn't want to go, I could have stayed out there all night except I probably would have got cold and wet, it was so magical, so peaceful and so beautiful. We paddled back to the boat and dried off. It was after midnight and we were pretty tired so we more or less headed straight to bed. But not before opening the french doors on our cabin and staring up at the stars for ages. We were trying to pick all the constellations out but only managed a few. I fell into bed tired but pretty contented and couldn't wait for tomorrow's adventures.
