Waikato District

After leaving Middle Earth I continued West to a hostel called Scott's place. I actually ended up here because a fellow traveler suggested I would like the town of Raglan and this was one of the few remaining rooms I could find. Little did I know that by my departure I would have hiked in a downpour, strummed my guitar on the beach, worn a wide array of silly hats and met some delightfully wacky characters I would now call friends.

Unlike the other hostels I've been in, Scott's Place is a house. It is actually Scotts home, as the name implies. It sits in some beautiful woods between Hamilton and Raglan on a few acres of land. When I pulled up I was greeted by a very spirited woman who introduced herself as Bubbles. I wasn't sure if it was the bright red dreadlocks, the glowing smile, or the helmet she was wearing that hit me first but it was at that moment I knew my stay here was going to be something to remember.

Bubbles took me around the property and gleefully pointed out the chicken coop, creek, library, outdoor kitchen, empty hot tub and campsites before returning to the house to show me my room. The house rules were also outlined and included one critical rule and a few less so. The top rule was that if you were caught leaving dirty dishes out you had to do everyone's dishes. This rule was quite effective as I rarely saw anything dirty in the kitchen.

I didn't have anything planned that afternoon so grabbed a book and sat in an easy chair to thumb through it. Within five minutes Bubbles reappeared from outside and in one motion as she walked by grabbed a pirate hat from the silly hats rack next to me and placed it squarely on my head. She was still in her helmet. Safety first! She sat down for a second and asked me how long I would be there. I replied that I was leaving Saturday morning. She immediately said I should at least stay through Saturday night because they were having a Pirate party. It took me about two nanoseconds to agree. How could I possibly say no?

It wasn't long before I began to meet the other residents of scotts place and first got introduced to Michelle from California and Tali from Boston. Michelle was just there for a while and Tali was helping Scott with some of his projects, so would be there a bit longer. Both helped around the place getting people checked in and whatnot. Michelle was also trying to get a work visa for New Zealand and the poor girl was having the worst luck trying to complete the application. I think by the third day I was there it was complete. A+ for persistence. I'm not sure I could personally travel a country for a year and just work odd jobs, but it seems fairly commonplace here. Maybe I should try it.

As the day rolled on more of the guests returned and I got to meet Adam, a surfer from Washington as well as Andy and Susie, a lovely British couple on the tail end of a three month holiday. Adam and I chatted a bit while I was still wearing the pirate hat. He was completely unfazed by it which was a good sign. Later, Andy and Susie were cooking dinner at the same time I was and we had a good chat. After dinner and a few beers they proposed a game and we landed on Scrabble. It wasn't long before I remembered just how fun games like this can be and I need to remember to play them more when I get home.

Scrabble concluded about the time Andy and I poured a couple glasses of Jamison. We took the conversation outside and I pulled out my guitar. He explained that he and a buddy had bet that he couldn't learn some guitar songs before his 40th which was still several years off, so I tried showing him Tom Patty's Free Fallin. Needless to say that drunkenly trying to teach or learn and remember a song is pretty ineffective, but we sure had fun. Sadly, I'm afraid Andy's friend might win the bet (sorry Andy).

Some time in the evening we decided to do a several-hour hike the following day. This hike would have us Mt. Karioi, an extinct volcano on the coast. The hike was listed as about 6 to 7 hours round trip and was listed as an advanced trek. They weren't kidding.

The following morning greeted us with more rain on the horizon, but after breakfast we headed for the trailhead anyway. We dropped Adam off in town so he could go to the skate park in town and had a coffee before making the winding drive along the coast and up gravel roads to start the hike.

It wasn't half a kilometer into the hike before we realized that this trek was going to be tough. Most trails I have hiked will have switchbacks to reduce the incline you need to walk. Whoever put this trail in probably said that switchbacks are for pussies because this thing went mercilessly straight up the side of the mountain. Undeterred by the incline we marched on. Ten minutes later the rain started and five minutes after that Susie opted to turn around. Andy and I agreed to hike for an hour one way, rain or not.

The rain subsided a little while later leaving us in thick cloud cover. For a hike known for its breathtaking views, we could barely see each other because of the clouds surrounding us. This still was not enough to turn us around and we succeeded in our mission of an hour up. Completely soaked, we turned around and began our descent. Let me just say that hiking uphill on wet rocks and mud is sure a lot easier than going down. Each step brought with it the risk of slipping so we used branches and anything we could find to stabilize ourselves. At one point we had to crab crawl the rocks were so slick. Our slow trip down lasted as long as the steep journey up and wouldn't you know it, but by the time we reached the car the clouds had nearly all lifted.

We grabbed a sandwich and beer in town and Andy and Susie went on their way for the last two days of their 90 day trip. I drove to a park by the water and pulled the truck into a spot. Thirty minutes later I woke up, truck still running and realized I had just taken a rather spontaneous and unexpected nap. It was a bit of a strange experience waking up and not even realizing I had been asleep, or where I was. From here I drove back to Scott's Place.

(Continued in next entry)Read more