Getting Lost…. (Part 4)

Last two days . . . still loads to enjoy and finish off ;). The nite was normal, nothing strange happened. We woke up on our intended schedules, took a bath and made some simple breakfast before checking out early from the hostel. Still, the morning was cloudy as before, it even started to develop into a light drizzle as the morning passed by. It did make us a bit disheartened as we thought we wouldn’t enjoy the scenery in the midst of this weather. But then…why the gloomy ideas…just enjoy things as they are.

So…we just drove to Mt.Managnui, a neighbouring town of Tauranga. Here, the main scene was the beaches with a hill (or mountain they say) right besides the beach. Had it been bright, I’m sure the scenery would be nothing less than awesome ;). At the beach, we only took a stroll along the beach line. We intended on hiking up the hill, but the increased rain drops held us back on doing so as we had no idea how bad the weather would be for us. Hence, the only thing to kill in time was to walk pass the streets of the town. We did so also to wait for a certain ice crea shop that Erwin recommended. Once we had a taste of the ice cream when they opened, it sure felt delicious despite the weather.

Next stop was the Waitomo caves . . . approximately 3-4 hours driving I remembered. But our problem there was we hadn’t made any reservations for the night there. Luckily we got one at the Mt Manganui i-site. With this in mind, it made us relieved that we just had to go there. Before hitting the place, we had a stop at Hamilton city for lunch. This city, turned out to be more crowdy than Rotorua. Here, Nandos was our choice and it was also a first time for Erwin :P. Had we not have booked a place in Waitomo, we would have opted to spend the nite in this city.

Along the road to Waitomo was weird. The sky suddenly became bright and clear. Hmmm….i wish this had happened days before >.< . Too bad eihh…Eniwei…the trip had to go on and we didn’t have time to regret it. The good side of it was that I was able to get clear shots finally from my phone of the sceneries that we passed by ^_^. This weather continued as we approached the Kiwi House just before Waitomo. This place was kinda like a zoo, only just having Kiwi’s and some local animals to NZ. Being an “aussie”, the fact that I did see a Kiwi bird here meant an irony for me as I haven’t seen a Koala till that moment >_>.

Done with the flightless birds, we then headed to our final destination. The place turned out to be quite remote. The signs to this were evident along the roads as we encountered less place of crowdiness. At Waitomo, it turned out that our hostel wasn’t far from the i-site and the caves. But the remoteness prompted us to find some ransom quickly before sunlight ceased itself. So, we headed back to the closest town before Waitomo and bought the stuffs we needed for dinner and breakfast. Our choice of meal….pasta…just simple pasta. The nite at the hostel was quite plain. Nothin much could be done due to the remoteness of the place. In the end, we only played pool and watched some film. I personally did my laundry and browsed the places at Sydney that I would be visiting. Erwin himself played his PSP in the room. We did watch a movie, but again I had to sleep early as I felt tired.

The next day….the last day finally. This time…things started of brightly in the sky and we hoped this would last for quite some while. Doing all the basic morning routines, we then took a detour to find a certain waterfall. The distance was quite far, being aroung 30 kms. And the road was sure up and downs with its share of left and rights thru the hills. But the reward once we got there was astonishing. Utterly breathtaking to make it simple. The falls were high…something that a fall should be. And the water flow was really rapid and clear. We obviously took some photos of the place. Due to time constraint, we couldn’t go done and get closer to the falls. But just observing the place was really exhilarating .

The way back was still breathtaking. We encountered endless views and scenery that really seemed like an eternity. But during the journey to the caves, we did encounter some sort of mishap which was when I speeded at the hills, we drifted coz we hit a hole that caused the car to go right and left uncontrolled. Damn lucky we were as there was no damage to the car nor ourselves were injured. Our luck was also due to the fact that there were no traffic on the road. . . .pheww…thank god we ended up fine.

The first cave was the Aranui cave. A simple cave with its share of stalaktits and stalagmites (did I get the spellings rite here?). The difference with the caves in Indo that it still retains its originality. Not to mention the authorities here still maintain the cave as it was despite putting in all the technology it needs for tourism. Indonesia should learn man. Next cave was the gloworm cave. The coolest part of this cave was that it had these glowworms that glowed in the dark. The view was at its best when we took a short ride on a boat to observed how these tiney creatures shined the dark cave with their bodily light.

Fiuuuhhh…done with all the touring and fun for the past 4 days, and now it was time for us to head back to Palmy. The 5 hour journey was tiresome and somewhat boring as there weren’t much scenery to observe. Erwin did most of the driving till Wanganui when I took over there. We only stopped once for a cup of coffee at a small town (forgot the name ^^;). We finally arrived at Palmy around 5 pm. Before heading home, we washed the car at a selfc cleaning station and returned it to the rental store.

My last nite at Palmy was intended to be simple and quite, just heading to sleep. But I suddenly thought of having one last snack outside. And there I was, eating a kebab in the coldness of summer Palmy. In the end, we got back as soon as we finished my last meal in NZ. Overall, the whole trip was splendid and marvellous. Though the whole journey didn’t go as planned due to the weather, we still managed to get the most out of things. I would never forget the places, sites and especially the view and scenery that will be in my mind forever. May one day I have the chance to come here once more to savor the moments .