WEEK THIRTY SEVEN, WORK, REST, PLAY
Trip Start
Mar 14, 2007
1
37
44
Trip End
Jan 16, 2008
Auckland,
North Island,
New Zealand
Thursday, November 29, 2007
I got a new job. As well as working in the hostel I now work in a veggie organic cafe right next door to the hostel! Ideal! I now work 7-10 am cleaning the hostel kitchen, 12 - 3.30pm serving food in the cafe and then 6 - 9.30pm being a dish pig and washing all the dishes and pots and pans in the cafe! I really wasn't prepared for how hard the dish washing part of the job was, so after my first night I quit! But the manager likes me and thinks I work well with the customers so he has kept me on just doing the day shift, which suits me grand!
Me, Gavin and Niall rented a car for the weekend and had yet another road-trip, and yet again we headed up North! They had never been and I love the place so much that I didn't mind going again! We also found another road-trip buddy also called Gavin and also from Dublin, so it was 4 Dubs in a car 3 of them were hungover, I wasn't one of the three so I ended up driving! I didn't mind though as I knew where I was going and I like driving. the boys on the other hand?, big bunch of girls scared of my driving, saying I was going to fast etc!!! Whatever, sure I drive fast, but I am also a good driver, been driving for 10 years now and have never ever had one crash, scrap or even near miss! Mot many people can claim that!
Anyways, I got them to Paihia safely and we started on the Sangria, we then ended getting pretty merry and the night went by in a blur! What a waste! But one good thing was my traveling luck was still on my side! My charm managed to get us free accommodation vouchers, so we didn't have to pay for that and we got an 8 bed dorm to ourselves complete with en suite and t.v!! Charmed!!!
The next morning I woke the boys up with BLT's and a cheery smile, thank God I don't get hangovers or i would never see the daylight! The moaned and groaned and pulled the curtains closed again, but after much annoyance from me they finally gave in and got up and we hit the road, minus the new Gavin who went off with his friends!
We again drove up to Doubtless Bay, and on to the white sand beaches where we stripped off into our bathers and dived head first in to the huge strong surf and body surfed the pounding waves. It was so good and refreshing and made me feel alive as being in the elements and nature usually does to me! But after a while I was knackered as the surf was really strong and I kept getting knocked under! It was really good fun though and it felt like I hadn't done anything fun and childish and playful like that in a while so it really did put a big smile on my face!
We then headed to Cape Reinga but needed to stop for petrol first as we were running on empty. However, there was a snag in our plan. The government decided that today was the perfect day for them to knock off the electricity to the whole of the Northland to carry out maintenance work. Nobody told us this, and nobody told us that petrol pumps don't work without power! The boys got a bit ratty with me, but the power has been off all day so we had no way of getting petrol at all, and I didn't want to be sitting around waiting! I told the boys we would be fine and we would make it there and back to the garage in time to fill up with the power came back on! I was lying through my teeth and praying that we would! We didn't! I few Min's later the petrol lamp came on and that's when the panic, from the boys set in, and that's when the hysterical laughter from me kicked in, i was loving it! Another scrape and adventure to add to my list. I guess traveling has really mellowed me out and given me a whole new outlook and perspective on things!
We did actually make it to the Cape and it was, once again, as always, an amazing sight! And, once again, it was deserted, just like the beach had been too like the last two times I had been here, oh yeah and, like the last two times I had been there it was also a full moon! How coincidental is that? After posing for many, maybe too many photos, Bebo and Facebook have a lot to answer for!
We headed back down and hoped we would make it to the garage, about 20kms away. So we turned the car off and free wheeled it down the road and actually made it to the garage. We were saved, or so we thought, but this is me traveling and things never go that smoothly! Yes we had made it to the garage, but the power was still off, but even if the power was back on it wouldn't have made a bit of difference as the garage was actually out of petrol!!! Can you believe it?? The next garage was about 60kms away! We had already got about 30 kms out of the car with the petrol light on, this was not looking good, but we took the chance anyways and decided to go for it and see how far we could get then one of us would hitch to the garage if necessary! We turned the engine off, thinking it would save petrol and let the car free wheel down the hills, then turned the car on quickly to give it a bit of gas to get it up the incline before turning it off again and physically pushing it over the crest of the hill.
We were all hungover, hungry, tired and doing this under the hot sun! The other cars passing us gave us some funny looks, as did all the sheep and cows that we passed! But as testament to us all and the type of people we are we never stopped smiling and laughing and enjoying ourselves! Gavin was our Saviour as he was in the driving seat, Niall was the muscle who pushed the car when he could and I was useless and fell asleep on the back seat. I woke up an hour later to find the boys, who are not boys but grown men in their 20's mucking about with the camera on the slides and swings in a kiddies play ground! Back in the car and 2 Min's later we made it to a garage, with power and with petrol! We free wheeled the car for over an hour! Amazing! What an adventure! I knew everything would work out in the end!
