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!
Finally got our first trail beer at Ahipara, no pubs though.. Had to carry a big box of them a mile from the liquor stove to the motel before we could finally crack one open. Well done Nicky, first section under your belt.
The 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. 
We’d decided to try and find a camp before we hit Paihia instead of blowing cash on a motel. And it turned out to be an awesome decision as it lead us to this phenomenal spot. I’m sat typing this in front of a wide gushing waterfall, surrounded by forest, giant date palms, and blue sky. And yet I can still grab a shower if I want. Perfect! I awoke in the night and stepped out to see spectacular starry sky set against the subtly illuminated falls. Beautiful. Olga and Andre the owners are really lovely down to earth characters. It’s a must-stay if you’re in town! :D Its lush. ( Thinking about trying my fishing rod in a minute… ).
So 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 ;)
After 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!
Writing this it’s raining and we’re trapped in the camp site TV room with some screaming teenagers. I forgot how loud they can be! Being a teenager must be like being drunk but all the time… Anyway yesterday was very different! Sun was out and we’d just got to Haihei to chill for the afternoon ready to kakay today. We had a bag of wine stashed in our beach bag and got ourself a spot down the white sand beach, almost the only people there.
After all that sulphur one needs a hearty luncheon! And this my friends was by far the best yet. Two giant chunks of tasty fish aboard a raft of vinegary chips. Oh my god I’m dribbling just thinking about it. ‘The Legend’ in the pic: a local rodeo star hero pinned up on the wall of the pub. We just liked the cut of his jib.
Yep best fish and chips to date, fish to batter ratio much better with nice big chunks of fish. Cheese on top of the salad too, oh yes. Happily return to the 
