90 Mile Beach Holiday Park

90 Mile Beach Holiday Park

Nicky
Ham Beans??

When we left Utea Park to walk for the day we were so looking forward to the next set if luxuries ahead including possibly a shower with warm water, a hot meal and BEER! :D

We set off super early and did our planed day’s miles before lunch! But horror of horrors, on arrival there was no cafe, pub, or food shop!  Oh nooooo!

We’re walking pretty early in the tourist season so it seems all the summer places aren’t fully open yet. So we were a bit scuppered for food to be honest! But managed to bag some baked beans from reception and the fella there very kindly dug us some frozen bread out of his home freezer for us, and we managed to persuade him to sell us one of his wife’s bottles of wine too… Success! Phew! Thank goodness.

These baked beans though. Very unusual. Slightly ‘exotic’ you might say…. They come in Ham Sauce…. Ham sauce?? Yes – sauce made of ham…. 0.5% ham anyway. Obviously someone somewhere thinks that ham us such a selling point over just regular beans, that it’s worth putting slices of it on the front of the can…? I have no idea what went on in that marketing meeting, but it was clearly someone’s leaving do the night before!

We Done It!

section 01

Doctor Cookie Administers the Medicinal Rum

Doctor Cookie

CookieThe riggers of coming down Taumatamahoe took the wind out of Nicky and the next section was supposedly ‘no camping’, so we treated ourselves to an early camp at the edge of the forest.

Haruru Falls Motel/Campsite

Haruru Falls Motel/Campsite

Bizarrely today has been the day of friendly Kiwi folk, this morning our motel manager kindly drove us to the bus stop in Kaitaia, in KeriKeri an old woman stopped us in the street and asked us if we’d like to stay in her house for a week while she was away (very tempting), and finally the guys at this motel drove us to the supermarket this evening to get some beers! We’re definitely in friendly central at the moment :)

Hard to get hold of the hard stuff here?

Mount Gay Rum

CookieSo we’ve started to realise that in New Zealand they only sell beer and wine at supermarkets. If you want to get hold of something that packs a bit more punch for it’s weight, you have to find a liquor store. Google maps doesn’t reckon there’s that many though (maybe not all listed?) and this store in Paihia might our last for quite a while.. To be on the safe side we decided to fill our booze bag up to the max with 2l of Mount Gay Rum, should keep us going for a few days ;)

Free Beer

Free Beer

NickyAfter a day of discovering some awesome beaches we ended up in the DOC ( Department of Conservation ) campground in the Mimiwhangata Coastal Reserve. After an epic, hot and sweaty 13 mile day we were so thankful when fellow campers Aiden and Helen popped over to introduce themselves bringing with them cold beers! Wuhoo! What awesome lovely people :D We salute you!

Cheeky Wine Bag Camouflage

Cheeky wine in a bag

Legendary Fish and Chips

Legendary Fish and Chips

Cook’s Booze at Taupo Wine Cellar

Cook's Booze at Taupo Wine Cellar

Happy New Year!

Tieke Kainga camp site

NickyCamping out for New Year was fun. There was clearly a lot of booze being packed in those canoes. There was riotous singing from two teams for the entire evening well into the wee hours. One particular favorite seemed to be Ring of Fire which was on a loop for about an hour at one point I think during the sing off.

We played cards by candlelight. Sipped a bit of rum and lemon fruit powder. Our tent got fired on by champagne corks. Went on a ‘possum hunt’ led by Josh and Mitchell. I thought we were just looking for them to get a glimpse, not *actually* trying to hunt them! But I soon realized when the frying pan came out that they meant serious business. I was kind of stunned and mesmerized all at the same time, standing there watching three boys running wild chucking bricks of wood into trees and chasing cat-sized animals about swinging a massive heavy frying pan. It was so Tom and Jerry I couldn’t really believe what I was watching! You couldn’t make it up. Transfixed on this bizarre spectacle and being a few rums in, it took me a while to come-to and realize this was probably not a nice thing to do, and there was a slim chance they’d actually catch one…

The weird thing is that here possums are considered like rats, but worse. And people shoot and poison them all the time… But still, even if hunting is an accepted everyday thing here, it felt a bit weird watching the little fella being stalked :( … Am I a softy?