November 10th:
We took a bus from Auckland to Paihia (Bay of Islands) intending to hitch from Paihia to Cape Reinga (the start of the trail) as soon as we were dropped off. What we hadn't planned on was the bus arriving an hour late; or Paihia being so beautiful. So when we arrived at 6pm we decided to make camp for the night, and paid a bit too much for a campsite at the Holiday Park (prices are fairly steep everywhere) That evening we had a lovely basket of fried fish and some very tasty New Zealand icecream. The man serving us talked with us for over an hour; as the conversation came to a close we asked about payment for the icecream... Turned out he didn't actually work there, no wonder he was giving us large samples of every flavor. We did pay for our dessert in the end, and it turned out our new friend knew the owner of the sweet shop and was just hanging around pretending to serve icecream.
November 11th:
Within the first 20 minutes of sticking my thumb out (Cody showing a little leg) we had our first ride. Thank you Simon for popping our hitching cherry. We hadn't realized just how far the distance from Paihia to Cape Reinga was so 6 hitches later we finally made it to Cape Reinga, a special thank you to our last hitch Owen who also walked with us to the lighthouse at Cape Reinga and joined us for our first steps on the Te Araroa trail. Also thank you to everyone that gave us a ride, New Zealand is full of many kind people.
Kiwi observation: I've come to the conclusion that Kiwi's would make excellent race car drivers. Everybody drives fast; and most of the roads here are windy mountain roads that require a bit of skill.
We took a bus from Auckland to Paihia (Bay of Islands) intending to hitch from Paihia to Cape Reinga (the start of the trail) as soon as we were dropped off. What we hadn't planned on was the bus arriving an hour late; or Paihia being so beautiful. So when we arrived at 6pm we decided to make camp for the night, and paid a bit too much for a campsite at the Holiday Park (prices are fairly steep everywhere) That evening we had a lovely basket of fried fish and some very tasty New Zealand icecream. The man serving us talked with us for over an hour; as the conversation came to a close we asked about payment for the icecream... Turned out he didn't actually work there, no wonder he was giving us large samples of every flavor. We did pay for our dessert in the end, and it turned out our new friend knew the owner of the sweet shop and was just hanging around pretending to serve icecream.
November 11th:
Within the first 20 minutes of sticking my thumb out (Cody showing a little leg) we had our first ride. Thank you Simon for popping our hitching cherry. We hadn't realized just how far the distance from Paihia to Cape Reinga was so 6 hitches later we finally made it to Cape Reinga, a special thank you to our last hitch Owen who also walked with us to the lighthouse at Cape Reinga and joined us for our first steps on the Te Araroa trail. Also thank you to everyone that gave us a ride, New Zealand is full of many kind people.
Kiwi observation: I've come to the conclusion that Kiwi's would make excellent race car drivers. Everybody drives fast; and most of the roads here are windy mountain roads that require a bit of skill.
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