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Oct 20
Fri

A deserted beach, a hot experiment and the first breakdown

Though it's raining continiously I take a walk from the campground to Karikari Beach direction Cape Karikari. At first I pass blooming manuka shrubs. Then, in front of the wide beach which is bordered by dunes the landscape turns into something like heathland. I'm just for me and put a stick into the sand to mark the way back. Rain stops falling down. The beach is white on the waterside and black backwards. On the way there's a pohutukawa tree as big as a house and many shells, rugged rocks at the end of the beach. Some scenes of Jane Campions The Piano were taken at Cape Karikari and because of the weather and the grey but clear light I'm in a movie-like mood. I've been walking for 3 hours when I follow back my own traces in the sand. No one except me has been here.

Karikari Peninsula Karikari Beach · more Karikari Peninsula pictures more pictures

Meanwhile Ralph was playing soccer with Harry (7), who's sitting in our car now taking some photos. He laughs about the word Gummiball which is the German word for rubber ball and sounds very funny to him. He wants to show me an experiment in their bus. I want to go swimming before but it doesn't take long because the water is bloody cold. So I go to see Harry in the Bedford bus. The three show me how they live there. The bus is very cosy with photos on the walls. I feel honoured to be so welcome in this sphere of personal privacy. Ted is sitting at a table working at his typewriter, a birdcage next to him. Willingly he gives place to the experiment. Harry asks Sally to boil some water. Then he starts building an unconventional construction with a shell hanging at a cord from the ceiling over a cup with hot water. Losing hold of the cord he lets the shell bump into the hot water: a bungee jumper, jumping off the Sky Tower and plunging into a hot volcanoe! «He currently studies volcanoes in school» Sally tells me with a twinkle in her eye and the whole family is making some fun of bungee jumpers.

They tell me about the advantages of the Bedford bus (for example being relatively autarchical because of the big capacity of the water and waste water tank) and I ask if it is normal that water comes up the plughole in our shower although the waste water tank can't be full. By no means, Ted wants to get Britz on the phone for us. Ted and Sally come with me, now we are sitting in our bus. It needs Ted some time to get the person in charge on the phone. Then he is told our problem is one which can't be possible and though he tells them the tank can't be full yet they recommend to empty it – that's all advice we get. We want to do that on the next camping site because this one has no dump station.

Ted and Sally tell us some tips for our journey, about the delicious green lipped mussels in Blenheim where they used to live and their children's address there in case we need some help. We like their company and saying goodbye is dearly and a little difficult. We hug each other and change addresses.

Karikari Peninsula – Harry Harry · more Maitai Bay pictures more pictures

We move on to Kaitaia, the last settlement of any size in the far north and buy some things we need there. On our further way along SH1 we have a bad smell in the car. There's again waste water in the shower and someone honks at us. We stop to see what's going on. The grey water is running out of the campervan! We can't do anything, so we drive to the next camping site Wagener Holiday Park / Houhora Heads where we get help from the friendly host couple. He instantly begins figuring out the problem with the tank. What a nuisance: actually it isn't full but something stucks. It must have been in there before we got the car because we neither took a shower nor we threw something in there.

I ask his wife, if she does the phone call for me because it's difficult for me with the New Zealand accent on the phone and I haven't got the vocabulary to explain our problems with the car and the tank. She tries to get Britz on the phone but there's no one in the office who could help. Long weekend and closing time, we shall try again tomorrow morning at 9 o' clock. Great support. The tank is emptied, the plughole sealed up and the stench is out of the car. There's nothing more we can do so we stroll around. The campground is awesome. Green and spacious, with huge trees and palms. There's a boat ramp at the shore. The water comes in gently and there's an island ahead. At the campsite is the Wagener Homestead Museum with a beautiful old garden. We go to the restaurant, which is either situated at the campground, and have a decent chicken curry. We feel quite weary and fall asleep early.

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