Postmen in the mountains

We spent two days at Daniel's Point of View before moving onward, eyes set towards a town called Warkworth. Taking advantage of a free ride, we ended up going 4 times the distance north of Warkworth, ending up in a town called Whangarei, now in the Northland region. The "Wh" in New Zealand is pronounced as an english "F," so you would say "Fangahray." I learned this pretty quickly after several awkward looks at me trying to pronounce it incorrectly as "um..Wang-ear-ee?."

It was then we had our first hitch-hiking experience.

Let me tell you a little something about hitch-hiking in New Zealand: It's pretty amazing. We haven't had to wait more than 10 minutes before a willing Kiwi pulls over, often willing to over-accomodate us and many times insisting on giving a tour of their locale. One of our early hitches serves as testament to the mentality of the people out here. The local postman, on the clock and en route, gave us a small tour of the beach and surrounding town on our way to Ngunguru, right outside of Whangarei. I feel everyone should have the experience of hitching on the back of a mail-truck at a bajillion-miles an hour (Kilometers per hour, here) in the middle of New Zealand, so have a look here:




We spent two days in the town of Whangarei, one to explore and the other to make arrangements for our next Wwoofing experience. On exploring Whangarei, we found that there was a nearby falls that included an hour or two hike. This is FREE amusement, no tickets or vendors or postcards or little furry kiwi bird bobble-heads and waterfall keychains at the top. Just "a toilets" (I'll get to that later).

Perfect.

I'll give you one guess as to what the falls were called.

..."Whangarei Falls." Likely because there are waterfalls all over NZ, this title exemplifies simplicity and straightforwardness, unlike the directions that Kiwi's give. I swear there was a time a Kiwi instructed, "at your first right there's no left, so don't make a right, then you'll have a second right where you'll make the left and on up. There's a hotel on your left at the first right and a signpost on the way." ...

Anyways, we took about 4 or 5 hours on the supposedly 1-hour hike to the falls, often going off trail into the lush bush and stopping for scenic photographs on the way. If you hiked it in an hour, you clearly have not seen anything on the way.

The victory that awaited us atop the waterfall was well worth the two layers of blisters I earned on the bottom of my feet. To be more specific, these blisters were located precisely between where my big toes meet the palm of my feet. This experience was called "overcoming-physical-pain-in-exchange-for amazement, natural wonder and experience" Number 1.

Okay, here's a picture of the falls:

Hello I'm a tourist #1.

We sat atop the falls for a good 20 or 30 minutes just resting and contemplating. When I say atop, I mean right damned there where the water falls off the rocks, looking 82 feet down. It was... beautiful. You might hear me say that a lot. But it was relatively nothing compared to what was ahead...