Raucous in Raglan

Got up bright and early this morning, tidied up the Lodge and gathered our things together. We all said farewell to Lucas, who was staying on for a few days, then hopped onto the bus and said goodbye to Hahei.

We started on our way to Hamilton, as we went, I thought it would be a good idea to make use of the time to sort out my ipod and clear off it the songs I do not like. So I spent a couple of hours going through the listings in itunes, selecting the songs to delete from the main playlist. We stopped for a coffee at a tiny town called Paeroa – the home of the famous L&P drink (a type of lemonade), which I still have yet to try, instead I went for a latte! Outside the cafe was a giant bottle of L&P, although somehow I managed to miss it, only seeing it as we left (I was probably too engrossed in the itunes clearout).

Back on the bus I continued my ipod fiddling and then got some help from Barry to synchronise the itunes with the ipod. Sadly this was an epic fail. I don’t know what happened, but everything deleted off the ipod, so I then had to put everything back on it from the itunes library. I tried again and another failure, everything deleted. After another total restore and deletion, I was getting a bit cross and tried something else, but all that has done is now to make it so that I can not delete/move/copy anything at all, so I am going to have to try and find an Apple store (chance would be a fine thing!) to see if they can solve the mystery!

We arrived at Hamilton and found Abbey. By this point, we were all slightly over excited and she got greeted by a barrage of references to vegetables, fruit and obscene names that we’d been using during the games last night. The poor girl did not have a clue what was going on! She sat next to me so I explained as best I could. As we drove through Hamilton (which Daisy told us is commonly referred to as the ‘Town of the Future’ – although I could see no reason as to why this possibly could be true) we saw the track and barriers etc from where there had been a big V8 race (I think I saw it on tv when I was in Auckland with Nikky) – you could see all the skid marks all over the road too.

Daisy took us to ‘Pak N Save’ – a big supermarket (for NZ, anyway – hardly like Sainsbury or Tesco; no pretty displays or signage, it’s more like a warehouse). We stocked up on important things like alcohol and some food, then hopped back in the bus and considered stealing or just moving the bus a bit before Daisy came back and seeing if he noticed, but no one had the guts to do it!

By now, I think Abbey had realised that we were just a silly bunch and she needn’t be worried, although I think she had doubts about that when we were back on the road – everyone knew I was trying to sort out my ipod, so when Daisy’s ipod died, there was a request for mine to be put on; specifically as they knew I have a ridiculous amount of Disney music on it. So that was put on full blast and we drove along with ‘Circle of Life’, ‘Hakuna Matata’ and I don’t know what else, blaring out and everyone singing along. I think Abbey once again wondered what she was letting herself in for!

We arrived in Raglan at lunchtime, so Daisy dropped us in town for an hour, stopping right outside the library – obviously this was very exciting for a few of us, so Paul, Barry and I dived straight in there and made use of the wifi, whilst others did sensible things like going for a walk to the harbour etc. When I came out of the library, I found some of the girls outside and Rebecca and I went for a wander around the sparse, but cute shops, before heading back to the bus.

The fifteen minute drive from town up to the Lodge we were staying at took us up some long, winding roads, which were also really steep. Daisy had asked me to cue up the song ‘Surfing USA’ on my ipod and whilst we drove up this road, he got everyone standing up or kneeling on the seats doing as he described ‘the most activity in NZ’ – bus surfing, whilst the Beach Boys song blasted out! It was rather funny watching the others wobbling about, although the sensible person inside of me really did think it was incredibly dangerous! At the top of the hill, Daisy pulled over and we could see a beach way below us – in the sea we could see lots and lots of surfers. Raglan is a particularly famous NZ surfing hot spot.

A few minutes later we pulled into our hostel and it promptly starting drizzling with a very fine, misty rain. After we had checked in, I went with Ciara to see our room and realised that for a one night stay, it was up way too many steps for me to be carrying my bag up! I went back to the bus and decanted some essential things to a smaller bag and took that up instead, leaving my big bag in the bus. Back in the room, we found that we would also be sharing with Charlotte and another girl who hadn’t been on our bus, but would be getting on it tomorrow (although she was so uber-shy that she didn’t really say anything else other than that). We stood on the veranda with the others and appreciated the view; the misty rain had stopped.

Ciara, Nickolai and Paul went off for their surfing lesson, so the rest of us decided to check out the Lodge. We came across Daisy who suggested we go to the Flying Fox – a zip line down a relatively slow incline. It looked like fun, so we had a go on that – again, my H&S alarm bells started ringing, as there was very little, well nothing in fact, in the way of protection; if you came off, you’d be falling from quite a height, straight onto a gravel/dirt track – well at least this was an incentive to hold on tight! I had one zip down the line and managed to stay on, but then decided that I’d had my fill of luck, so should not go back for more!

The excitement of the Flying Fox over, we all stood about saying the usual “What do you want to do?” to which everyone replied “Don’t mind”! Most people dissipated, leaving just Charlotte, Rebecca, Barry, Daisy and myself. I threw out an idea – going somewhere in the Stray bus, then after a little discussion, we made a plan. We had a chill for half an hour (I thought it was a bit harsh for Daisy to drive again already, having driven for ages and only just arriving!) then jumped on the bus.

Daisy took us to town, where we found a cafe and had afternoon tea! It was most civilised and quite nice chatting in a small group over a coffee. Next, Charlotte, Rebecca and Barry nipped across the road to the supermarket and cash machine, whilst Daisy and I went to the bottle shop for some supplies. We reconvened and headed back to the bus, then Daisy took us to an ice cream shop a bit up the road. I had a cone with ‘Goody Goody Gum Drops’ – it was good! Nibbling our ice creams, we carried on to the beach, parked up and walked down a very steep slope to the sand. We stood on the beach, being blown to pieces, feeling rather cold, but enjoying the view of the sea and trying to make out which of the surfers were our friends – we couldn’t be certain; they all looked the same! We chatted and I denied being cold (I am still braving the cold and not giving in to cardigan wearing unless it’s extreme!), then we all decided we’d seen enough of the beach, so went back up the hill to the bus.

We got back to the Lodge at about 5pm, we went into the main hall, only to find the tv and sofas had been taken over by a bunch of Germans, so Rebecca and Charlotte went online whist I played pool against Daisy. He thought I was pool-sharking him when I told him I couldn’t play, then after a few minutes he realised that I had actually meant it! I was truly trounced but it was a funny game nonetheless – I think they found my attempts at hitting the ball rather entertaining! When Daisy had won and then potted all of my remaining balls (ie, all of them!), we noticed that the tv area was vacant – yoink!

I shouted out the different VHS films that were on offer but no one would make a decision, so I just selected Pulp Fiction and whacked that on. Curled up on the sofa , sinking a few bevvies, watching a good movie was great! Before long, a few of the rest of the bus gang found us and we sat enjoying the film. After four drinks I had a look at what it said on the can and noticed ‘High Caffeine Content’. Oh dear. I had been thinking I felt a bit funny, not drunk, just incredibly alert. The whole bus gang was in the hall when the film ended and it was dark outside, so Daisy said he would take us on the tour he’d promised – Daisy’s Glow-Worm Walk. It was only when I got up and went outside that I noticed just how ‘wired’ I was – serious caffeine overload. The others said it was really funny, as I was speaking at a hundred miles an hour, with incredibly wide eyes and being generally odd. Daisy’s ‘tour’ was actually five minute walk from the hall, down to the reception, along a path and back up to the hall again – along the way we saw a grand total of six tiny glow worms, I still thought it was cool though!

Back at the hall I was devastated to see that the tv had been taken over by some Germans again, but there were only two of them, so seeing as we had the larger number, we managed to overthrow the German invasion and get the VCR back. I selected the next film, as again, no one else would make a decision, so I put in ‘Lock Stock’ and settled back on the sofa, with a beer this time as I thought I might have had enough caffeine for the night! I had a bit of a fight with the remote, trying to get it to play, but managed to get it going in the end – again, I was told that this moment was particularly hilarious, in my hyped state!

During the film, I got up and made a tuna sandwich (thanks to Nikky who had left me the necessary ingredients!) possibly not using the most usual method, as I didn’t want to wash up, but it was fine! I do recall getting some rather odd looks though! We carried on watching the film and chatting, then when it was over, we sat around and played some games (including a repeat of those we’d played in Hahei) and again spent the rest of the evening, into the wee hours, in absolute hysterics before dragging ourselves to bed.