Whitianga Adventures

We had got it into our heads that a "bach" was a tent and because my legs were so swollen that I couldn't walk properly I decided it wouldn't be a good idea to stay in a tent. So, Helen text him and said that my sunburn was too painful to stay in his tent! Then a few days later we read in our guidebook that a "bach" is actually a holiday home - how stupid did we feel! We spent the few days leading up to coming to the Coromandel trying to hint to Tommo that I was much better but we were finding it difficult to find a place to stay! Unfortunately, we think we may have been uninvited!

We arrived in Whitianga and began phoning round all the hostels but everywhere was booked up. We realised we had our sheets from our duvet covers and so the only thing we could think of was to sleep on the beach and build a den! Eventually, we got booked into a hostel called Bushcreek Cottage but were warned that it was quite far out and we would need to get a taxi.

After the twenty minute taxi drive and a $30 bill we arrived at Bushcreek Cottage, which although pretty was in the middle of nowhere! We had absolutely no idea how we were going to get back into town the next day, especially with our big rucksacks! We went to pay for our accomodation and got very excited when we saw a sign saying "shop" as we had no food and shops if they existed around there would be miles away. The owner of the cottage Ann, asked if we wanted to buy some food, we took a look at the shelf which had a tin of beans, some soup and some noodles and literally emptied the shop!

Helen asked about signal from a Mobile phone and she led us to the top of the hill and said we needed to position ourselves near the washing line to get a signal. We went back inside the hostel and cooked a feast of beef instant noodles and cup a soup. We were unable to drink water from the tap because it was filtered from the river and so we had to boil the water and refridgerate it, so there we were putting a pan of water in the fridge for the morning!

We decided against having showers at the cottage because you were only allowed a maximum of five minutes so there would be enough hot water for everybody. Going to the toilet was an adventure, it was outside and most of the time covered in spiders - yuck!

We went for a walk around the beautiful surroundings of the cottage, there was a gorgeous river which you could swim in on a nice day. We ended up getting bitten by little creatures so decided to head back to the cottage and get an early night. There was no heating in the cottage because it was built in the 1800's so we were absolutely freezing!
Although we had to contend with the cold, lack of food and water and being miles from anywhere, it was quite an adventure and all we could do was laugh!

written by  Susie Sue on January 1, 2006 from Whitianga, New Zealand
from the travel blog: New Zealand
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