Having had a decent rest and feeling back to normal again, I was up early and packing my things up, in record time – maybe I am getting better at packing! Once we had checked out, we went to the Wendy’s down the road and had a Wendy’s breakfast, although this time we did not drive through (or ‘thru’), instead we went inside! This was an incredibly exciting experience as I had never seen a Wendy’s breakfast before (yes, I am aware of how pitiful my life must be if I find a take-away so thrilling!). The menu was not particularly extensive – there are three options – so we both had pancakes. It was good, but sadly it did not live up to my expectations and to be fair to the pancakes, my expectations were pretty high seeing as I was so excited!
Next we hopped back in the car and went to the city centre, where we had a wander down Queens Street and looked at the shops. I think Mike was quite impressed at how well I knew this stretch of Auckland, but I then explained that it was because all I had done previously when I had been in the city had been walk up and down Queens Street, to and from the hostel!
After a lot of mooching in shops, grabbing a spot of lunch and having stretched our legs, we started on the next section of the road trip – to Paihia. The journey itself was unsurprisingly uneventful, in that there is really nothing to see along the way! The most interesting thing that happened was that we went on a toll road where there seemed to be nowhere to pay the toll. I realised this bit of the journey was new to me – the Intercity and Stray buses had avoided the toll road. It was only a short section of road, so before long we were back on the old highway again, where the scenery does not change at all!
The drive to Paihia is rather long and not particularly inspiring, so at least we could chat which helped. We also took up a new sport of number plate spotting. It appears that personalised plates are quite common in NZ and they are often actually quite good, so we kept a close look out for funny number plates. We stopped for a coffee at the Swinging Cow – I had been telling Mike about it and then we came upon it. Seeing as it is the only cafe that you pass for over two hours, it seems the most sensible place to stop. I had been telling Mike about the excessive cow-related paraphernalia inside the cafe and within seconds he could clearly see that this was no exaggeration! It certainly was an experience!
When at long, long last we arrived in Paihia, we checked in at our hostel and crashed out for a bit in the tv lounge. They had the CNN channel so we saw some more hype about the elections and all the dramas that are unfolding with regards to it.
Feeling inspired to go for a walk, we headed into town and found somewhere for dinner; Jimmy Jacks. We chose it because it was the only place that was open and seemed ok as there were some people inside. It was another ‘world famous in NZ’ – this place claimed to serve world famous ribs but I somehow think it may have been an overstatement! We had a beer and then I showed Mike around the tiny town of Paihia – it really is small! Of course it was night time so everything was closed, but at least he got his bearings a bit.
Back at the hostel, we went back to the tv room and were not surprised to see that Lord of the Rings was on, so watched that for a bit. I have a new theory about LOTR – I think there must be some NZ law that decrees it compulsory for everyone to watch the trilogy every day, like it’s the national movie, or something! I tried not to ask as many stupid questions during this viewing, but that was mostly because I think it was the same one I had seen with Kim yesterday, so at least I had a vague idea what was going on! This then made me sleepy so I turned in.
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