Day 8.
The day in numbers:
147 km driven.
Mountains walked up: 1
Room for maneuver in hired wetsuit: 0.
4 waves successfully caught.
Approx. 30 wipe-outs.
Litres of sea water swallowed: 30.
Map of Day 8's drive:
N (hidden behind M) - Mount Maunganui. O - Te Puke. P - Rotorua
I am going to start this blog entry with a moan about hostel showers. Since I left my bungalow, I don't think I have been in a shower that has been put together with an ounce of common sense.
The most common problem is a lack of hooks to hang clothes and towel on. Seeing as the showers are always a few corridors, if not stories from my room, it is the done thing to take clothes with you. Mixed dorms dictate this protocol too. Only one hook to keep the towel and two sets of clothes from the wet floor, results in an peed off Fred in wet clothes.
The next issue with most hostel showers is the height of the shower head, which usually only moves horizontally. At 5'11, I am pretty average height, especially in New Zealand where young males are routinely placed in grow-bags from the age of 5. The vast majority of shower heads are at shoulder height, great if I didn't want to get my head wet, but I do, to wash it.
Another problem is the temperature control. I think they try to simplify the options to an extent that anybody could understand. So one lever goes from off to cold to boiling hot in about 5 degrees of motion. That is about a milimetre separating 1st degree burns from spontaneous, ice-water induced falsetto. The shower I went in today had this lever at arse height, so whenever I moved slightly to the left it turned it off, and upon moving slightly right it boiled me like a new potato.
Driving in very hot weather means a good shower is a much sought after luxury. I don't appreciate it being more hard work to wash at the end of the day, then it was to travel a couple of hundred kilometres.
I also don't appreciate a little sign asking me to dry the shower after use. That is plainly ridiculous. I left the cubicle walls wet, like everyone else who has ever had a shower...
Back to the journey returning from Hobbiton. I woke up nice an early in Mount Maunganui, and felt like a bit of exercise was needed. The first mission was to trot up the actual mount. On looking through the photos I took on Day 8, I realised that I didn't actually take any pictures of the mountain. Except this one that isn't really of the mountain, and pretty blurry.
I am going to start this blog entry with a moan about hostel showers. Since I left my bungalow, I don't think I have been in a shower that has been put together with an ounce of common sense.
The most common problem is a lack of hooks to hang clothes and towel on. Seeing as the showers are always a few corridors, if not stories from my room, it is the done thing to take clothes with you. Mixed dorms dictate this protocol too. Only one hook to keep the towel and two sets of clothes from the wet floor, results in an peed off Fred in wet clothes.
The next issue with most hostel showers is the height of the shower head, which usually only moves horizontally. At 5'11, I am pretty average height, especially in New Zealand where young males are routinely placed in grow-bags from the age of 5. The vast majority of shower heads are at shoulder height, great if I didn't want to get my head wet, but I do, to wash it.
Another problem is the temperature control. I think they try to simplify the options to an extent that anybody could understand. So one lever goes from off to cold to boiling hot in about 5 degrees of motion. That is about a milimetre separating 1st degree burns from spontaneous, ice-water induced falsetto. The shower I went in today had this lever at arse height, so whenever I moved slightly to the left it turned it off, and upon moving slightly right it boiled me like a new potato.
Driving in very hot weather means a good shower is a much sought after luxury. I don't appreciate it being more hard work to wash at the end of the day, then it was to travel a couple of hundred kilometres.
I also don't appreciate a little sign asking me to dry the shower after use. That is plainly ridiculous. I left the cubicle walls wet, like everyone else who has ever had a shower...
Back to the journey returning from Hobbiton. I woke up nice an early in Mount Maunganui, and felt like a bit of exercise was needed. The first mission was to trot up the actual mount. On looking through the photos I took on Day 8, I realised that I didn't actually take any pictures of the mountain. Except this one that isn't really of the mountain, and pretty blurry.
Either way it is a big hill at the end of a spit of land. That spit of land has a town filling it from the beach on the East side to the harbor on the West.
So I set off straight after breakfast and made for the summit, by means of the very well kept footpaths, along with everyone else in the vicinity. The people making the way up were generally split into two very distinct groups. The one sort were people dressed in vests, lycra and trainers of varying luminous shades, who were intent on skipping every other step and in doing so overtook me. The other group was a mix of old men who reckoned they still had the fitness, and fat people who never did have it. I overtook these people. At the top (761 ft), the survivors are rewarded with magnificent views of the beach, Mount Maunganui town and Tauranga, and the busy looking ocean.
The beach in the first picture is where I later went surfing. On my decent, and after rehydrating, I set off for the beach and hired a huge surfboard and a tiny wetsuit. My thinking was the bigger the surfboard the less I will fall off. That is not the case, it means that there is more area being pushed by the power of the sea so you fall off more. The girl working at the hire place obviously underestimated the frame I have developed from milking cows, and gave me a wetsuit that could not have been tighter without cutting off circulation. Maybe she just wanted to see my definition though, I don't know.
Obviously the ocean is a non camera zone so I have no photos of the many times I was doing this:
Instead here is a photo of me doing the classic pose to prove I was actually there:
Actually after I had taken back the gear, I went in the sea in just my shorts with my camera in its waterproof pouch. It takes a good photo through it about 10% of the time. You have to use shotgun tactics and take a load of photos, hoping one or two will be in focus. I didn't take enough to get that photo.
However here is a cool picture that I took once back on dry land:
When I left Mount Maunganui, I headed south towards Rotorua. I drove through a town called Te Puke which means 'The Hill', apparently it is not pronounced in a vomitty fashion. Still my immature self found the name quite funny. Especially in the context of shop signs. 'Te Puke Liquor Store' was a personal favourite, they should have warnings like that on the alcohol shops in the UK too. Te Puke is also the main kiwifruit growing region of NZ, for those of you who are wondering, they grow on a vine like a big hairy grape.
At Rotorua, the volcanic and geothermal capital of the country, there was a distinct odour of sulphur hanging around and a massive lake with an island in it. More on that in the next post, but it was my least favourite place so far.
See you later then.
So I set off straight after breakfast and made for the summit, by means of the very well kept footpaths, along with everyone else in the vicinity. The people making the way up were generally split into two very distinct groups. The one sort were people dressed in vests, lycra and trainers of varying luminous shades, who were intent on skipping every other step and in doing so overtook me. The other group was a mix of old men who reckoned they still had the fitness, and fat people who never did have it. I overtook these people. At the top (761 ft), the survivors are rewarded with magnificent views of the beach, Mount Maunganui town and Tauranga, and the busy looking ocean.
The beach in the first picture is where I later went surfing. On my decent, and after rehydrating, I set off for the beach and hired a huge surfboard and a tiny wetsuit. My thinking was the bigger the surfboard the less I will fall off. That is not the case, it means that there is more area being pushed by the power of the sea so you fall off more. The girl working at the hire place obviously underestimated the frame I have developed from milking cows, and gave me a wetsuit that could not have been tighter without cutting off circulation. Maybe she just wanted to see my definition though, I don't know.
Obviously the ocean is a non camera zone so I have no photos of the many times I was doing this:
Instead here is a photo of me doing the classic pose to prove I was actually there:
Actually after I had taken back the gear, I went in the sea in just my shorts with my camera in its waterproof pouch. It takes a good photo through it about 10% of the time. You have to use shotgun tactics and take a load of photos, hoping one or two will be in focus. I didn't take enough to get that photo.
However here is a cool picture that I took once back on dry land:
When I left Mount Maunganui, I headed south towards Rotorua. I drove through a town called Te Puke which means 'The Hill', apparently it is not pronounced in a vomitty fashion. Still my immature self found the name quite funny. Especially in the context of shop signs. 'Te Puke Liquor Store' was a personal favourite, they should have warnings like that on the alcohol shops in the UK too. Te Puke is also the main kiwifruit growing region of NZ, for those of you who are wondering, they grow on a vine like a big hairy grape.
At Rotorua, the volcanic and geothermal capital of the country, there was a distinct odour of sulphur hanging around and a massive lake with an island in it. More on that in the next post, but it was my least favourite place so far.
See you later then.
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