Ow

Woo- so sorry it's been a while since last update... I'll do a quick recap of the last couple days:

Monday: Got bus passes that take us down to Wellington, but we can get on/off at whatever city we want. We hop on the bus and head to Thames. We had a pretty relaxed rest of the day, got pizza and watched James Bond at the hostel. Became good acquaintances with the host, who always greeted us with a friendly "hi chaps"

Tuesday: Took a shuttle to Whitianga, a small town on the Coromandel Peninsula. The hostel was right on the beach, and the weather was great. We have time to run to the store before it got too dark, and made copious amounts of stir-fry and rice. I ate until I couldn't anymore.

Wednesday: Woke up, had some of Nathan's signature omlettes (tasty cheese, avocado, and onion). We rented some (crummy) bikes from the hostel for $20, and rode through some beautiful hills about 18 km to Hot Water Beach. We walked down the beach and hung out until low tide, when you can rent shovels and dig a hole near some rocks where hot spring water apparently bubbled up. We got the shovel, and started digging. At this point, the water is still pretty far in, and waves keep destroying our holes. Just before we are about to lose hope, we walk down into the surf and bury our feet, only to find that we are being very badly burned! Yay! So we set up a routine of digging about an inch into the sand and sitting there until a freezing wave comes, or our bums are scalded by hot water. After the tide comes back in and we are sufficiently sandy and cut up by sharp rocks, we decide to call it quits and ride back, because we realized that we forgot to pack lunch. Noah broke his Jandals. The ride back turns out to be harder, and by the time we get back to the hostel, Nathan is so tired that he slices his thumb while cutting cheese. The hostel guys were helpful, we got a ride to a woman's house who then took us to the local clinic, and they put a nice baseball-sized bandage on thumb. By that time, we are almost delerious from lack of food, so we walk to a restaurant and eat the most delicious and deserved burger of our entire lives. We slept hard.

Thursday: Had cowboy toast and budget beans* for breakfast, and mess around until the shuttle came to take us back to Thames (the ride back was rather twisty, and the german in back only asked us for a bag to puke in once), where we get back on the Intercity bus to come to Tauranga. The hostel guy pointed us in the direction of a fish and chips place, where we ate delicious fish and chips with tomato sauce (ketchup.) wrapped in newspaper (we can't escape from Sarah Palin). Tomorrow we're going to hike up Mt. Maunganui, and visit the hot springs there, where we won't have to dig so much.

Will post pics later, probably...
cheers




*Budget (brand) beans cost $0.65, and they are my favorite thing ever... tomorrow we are going to try budget spaghetti.