We left Rotorua three days ago and set out for the town of Gisborne, where we have a WWOOFing job set up for Kellogg, Simon, Dardan, Luise, Felicitas and I. Before we left, though, we stopped in to a nature park just outside of town called Paradise Valley, where we were able to see lots of really cool wildlife and even pet some lion cubs. The park had a bunch of cool animals, including parrots, wallabies, ostriches, ducklings, alpacas, bunny rabbits, lots of fish, and, of course, lions. The lion cubs were one of the softest things I've ever felt in my life. The guy working at the park said they hadn't named the cubs yet, and he asked for our suggestions if we had any good ideas...to which I of course replied "name them Simba and Nala, duh!" He rolled his eyes at that, and made it seem pretty clear that it wasn't the first time he had gotten this suggestion. In an effort to compensate for my lack of imagination, I then suggested that he might name each of their lions after a member of the Lord of the Rings fellowship, and he took pretty well to that idea. Maybe it was just the tourist marketability that such names would bring.
After we left the nature park, we headed down south for the little town of Whakatane. Upon arrival, however, we discovered that the few hostels that the place had to offer were all booked up, and so we continued on down the road until we reached the even smaller town of Opotiki, where a hostel called the Beach House was able to accommodate us. Opotiki was insanely tiny; downtown Opotiki consisted of just one grocery store. The hostel was amazing, though; it was located right on the beach, which was huge, isolated, and picture-perfect for a New Zealand postcard. There was a long peninsula on each side, extending as far out into the ocean as the eye can see and each with tree-covered mountains jutting up out of the ground, which is a crazy thing to see right next to the ocean. The waves at the beach were sizable as well, and I'm sure that if we'd had boards then we would have all spent the whole day we were there surfing up a storm. Instead, we built a small hut on the beach using logs and branches that we found washed up on shore, and sat there on our little sand floor making conversation over cold Coronas and the sound of the waves breaking upon the shoreline. As we sat enjoying one another's company, we realized that it was the last day of spring here in New Zealand, and also that we were in the perfect place to have a Kiwi sort of spring break.
We met some very nice Austrian girls and a few German guys back at the Beach House, and after we cooked ourselves a dinner of steaks and pasta we chatted and played cards with them well into the night, not turning in until about three in the morning. Still, we woke up early the next day so as to check out before ten, and we got back onto the road after filling up with petrol to make our way further down south for the village of Tokomaru Bay. We arrived there today at about five o'clock and checked in to the hostel we're staying the night in, which is called Lost in Paradise. This place truly is just that, lost in the heart of paradise...it's even smaller than Opotiki was, with only 500 people living here and one small store that closes at four o'clock. Since we got into town at five, we went to the local pub for dinner and a few games of pool. I ordered a rump steak with fries, which was quite good, even given New Zealand's lack of A.1 sauce (there are some things you just can't take out of an American. Yea, it's that important). We've just arrived back at the hostel, and we're all getting ready to turn in pretty early for bed, as it's Luise's birthday tomorrow and we want to be up in the morning to watch the sun rise over the bay and celebrate her 21st with her all day. The day after tomorrow, we'll be headed out of town and finally arriving down in Gisborne, where we have our WWOOFing gig set up on a massive farm that we'll probably spend about three weeks on. I'll update the blog when we get there, barring another dearth of internet access (which, let's face it, isn't all too unlikely in this low-tech country).
Ready for the dawn of New Zealand's summer and glad the lions kept their paws to themselves,
Jack
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