Call for our Carers

Today should have been simple. All we had to do was check out of the hotel in Paihia and then drive the 250 km back to Auckland. What could possibly go wrong ? As it turned out, quite a lot.

The day started off on an ominous note when Maggie woke up and promptly announced that she was feeling awful. That was not the news I was hoping for. "What sort of awful ?" I asked. "I feel sick everywhere", she answered.

My mind immediately started thinking ahead to all the possible scenarios that could act out in coming days. Some of these were so unwelcome that I used my extensive medical knowledge to perform an immediate diagnosis. "I am sure you will feel better when you get up". She didn't.

While the rest of the group went out to a cafe for breakfast (they couldn't face another appalling continental breakfast at the Paihia Pacific), I carried Maggie to the car and looked for somewhere to eat that was far enough away from the others that Typhoid Maggie would not bring her contagion to the whole team.

She managed to get a take away bowl of muesli and sat on a bench seat in the main street eating it, while I sat in the cafe across the road. We then returned to the hotel to check out. I was not surprised to find no one at the desk, so I had to drop the key and leave.

We then headed off towards Auckland in a convoy of one car. The rest of the team crammed into the other two cars. With Maggie feeling so unwell, we decided to make it back to Auckland as quickly as possible. There was however one stop she really wanted to make, and that was at the toilets in Kawakawa.

To clarify, she didn't actually need the toilet, she just wanted to see it. The Hundertwasser Toilets are world famous for being the weirdest conveniences you ar ever likely to see. They were created by a local artist out of a collection of odd coloured tiles and whatnots. Personally, I thought they were quite hideous, but apparently that is because I am a Phillistine.

After seeing (and utilizing) the famous toilets we were on our way again. The only other stop we made was a brief lunch stop at Waipu (now that would be a more suitable location for a famous toilet). We finally rolled into the Naumi Hotel at around 3 pm. The others arrived sometime later.

It was only later in the day that I learnt exactly what else had been going on. Gael discovered that she had left her phone charger at the Paihia Hotel. That is now 2 phone chargers that have been left behind in the past two days.

A couple of hours later I rang Gordon in Paihia and he told me an even sadder tale. He had left his computer in the previous hotel and had spent the entire day driving back and forth to retrieve it

That brings the sad total of abandoned luggage to
2 x phone chargers
2 x luggage locks
1 x laptop computer

You could also add to this the iPhone that Kerry destroyed on the first day and the unpaid dinner bill from last night.

I always knew it was not easy taking a group of geriatric Ghostriders overseas, but it was not meant to be this hard. I wonder what the next few days will bring ?Read more