My 5th day in Paihia (a Sunday) began with a morning Skype with Mum and Dad. Their webcam wasn’t working though so it was more 20 minutes of me looking at my own reflection while having a phone conversation with the two of them. A slightly more successful Skype with Lottie and Rhodri followed that (I could at least see them) but the crappy wifi did mean we spent more time saying “Oh you’ve frozen!” than much else.
It was fun to finally catch up with them all! Very weird to think that I had just woken up and they were all getting ready to go to bed. That’s definitely the weirdest part of talking to people back home; being on complete opposite sides of the day.
I just want to point out that I had only just woken up and so my parents and sister were seeing me within the first hour of opening my eyes, a time that anyone who knows me well knows isn’t prime social time for me. And Mum and Dad, that’s why I looked tired. Not because I’m overdoing it (I’m doing the exact opposite of that actually, it’s like being back in Uni just without the lectures) but because I had quite literally only just got out of bed. A bed I had been sleeping in for about 10 hours. “Rest” is something I am definitely getting enough of here!
I’ve just remembered what we did that afternoon and so it’s going to sound like I’m contradicting myself but rest assured, all other parts of the day were very relaxed.
So relaxed in fact that it got to about half 1 and we realised we had done very little with our day. It never helps that Tom comes back from cycling, telling you he’s cycled 40/50 miles, and you have to tell him that you think you’ve moved from the chair you’re in but you’re not actually sure…
We had been planning to walk to the Haruru Falls that day. By the time Finn left to kayak there and Tom had showered and eaten after cycling, we knew it was time we actually got up and kicked ourselves into action.
It took about 45 minutes to walk to the beginning of the trail, just past the Waitangi Treaty Grounds. The sign at the start of the trail told us it was a 5km track, and should take roughly an hour and a half each way. The unwelcome news was that the grounds would be shut at 5pm (presumably to protect the wildlife there). Seeing as it was 2:50pm already, that didn't exactly leave us a lot of time (or any, really).
In true “we’ll deal with that when we come to it” fashion, we set off anyway.
The track we were on meandered through the forest, haphazardly following the river that flowed alongside us.
We found one tree hanging over the water that was full of birds nests with baby birds inside waiting to be fed by their parents nearby. We stood for a while and watched the birds flying in and out of the tree, and laughed at one particular baby bird that was so determined to be fed, it was relentlessly pecking its parents neck.
The walk was tiring. We were all glad to reach the falls just because it meant we could sit down briefly and rest our legs.
Obviously seating wasn’t the only good thing about reaching the end of the track. I’ve never seen a waterfall before (at least not one that’s drop is more than a metre or so) so I was in my element, taking photos, walking up and down the stream, everything. It was especially good knowing I had “earned” the sight, having spent the last hour and a half walking there.
It was about half 4 by the time we had reached the falls and so we decided to walk along the road back into Paihia, rather than risk having to turn back on the track because it was closed.
The walk back was considerably less fun than the walk there. Without all the nature to distract us, we could only really concentrate on walking. Walking that didn’t seem to be ending any time soon.
The only thing worse than the walk itself was Tom’s shit motivational talks.
“Okay just to warn you all, I cycled this way earlier and there was a hill that took about 5 minutes for me to ride up. It’s a disgusting hill.”
Then, when we reached the top of a hill none of us had actually found that difficult:
“Oh it might not have been this stretch that that hill was on. That was it then guys, it’s just downhill from here!”
We believed him.
Oh, we believed him. We marched on, buoyed by the idea that we had done the worst part of the walk and hadn’t even suffered that much.
I really do think that if you been stood near us, you would have heard our hearts sink when we rounded the corner and found ourselves at the bottom of a hill.
The hill.
The hill that was stretching up impossibly, unfairly far in front of us.
“Oh.” said Mr Motivation.
He tried to make it better; he tried to convince us he knew it was downhill after this, that we were almost into Paihia; but the trust was gone. His silence was demanded (but not willingly given).
It was the last hill but that didn’t make it any easier to climb. Our poor muscles were screaming in protest. My bum muscles started to cramp, something I didn’t even realise could happen.
We survived it, however barely. There wasn't even a rewarding view at the top because of how the trees were planted, and the way the road wound down to the water. There was nothing but the grey road, and Tom's protests that he all he had been trying to do was make us feel better.
We popped into the supermarket we found at the bottom of the hill, just to give ourselves a moments respite from continuing the walk back to the hostel. When we finally made it back to our room, we fell onto our beds and not one word was spoken for half an hour at least.
The silence continued until Finn came in, full of energy that none of the silent, horizontal lumps on the bed had. We had decided that we would eat out that evening, to mark the last night the 5 of us would be together for possibly ever (Emily was leaving for Auckland the following day). It was definitely for that reason that we went out, and not because none of us was up to standing in the kitchen to cook our own food.
We didn’t walk far (thankfully) before we found a bar that had a happy hour deal: $6 for a burger and fries. Perfect!
The portions were actually a good size, considering the price (£3ish!), and they tasted great as well. Mum always says food tastes better when it’s cooked for you, and I’ll go one beyond that and say that food always tastes better when it’s cooked for you and you know you don’t have to walk anywhere else for the rest of the day.
We only had one more thing left to do that day and that was to figure out where we would be heading next. The two main factors driving our choice was the price of the hostels, followed by whether or not the bus actually stopped there. With those things in mind, we ended up choosing Hamilton. 4 nights booked and boom, we had a next destination.
Needless to say, we fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow that evening.
Possibly even before...
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