I again woke up first as I always do. Gratefully, though we were on a fairly busy Street, nobody bothered us during the night, parked in the parking lot there. I think people are less likely to bother us because we’re just a wagon and not a camper?
It wasn’t long after getting up that I needed to go to the bathroom, but I couldn’t just go find the nearest bush.
I didn’t want to wake Chase up to drive to find a bathroom, so I started walking down the main road, coming to the gas station and the nearby market, but there weren’t any public toilets available
So I had to get creative 🙃
The nearby tracks of land were much more private than I needed them to be to be able to use the woods as my bathroom, so I started just walking down the highway until I came to a place where the brush on the side of the highway was thick enough and went back in far enough that despite the many cars coming each way, no one would actually see me tucked away in the bushes with my pants down. 🙃
Aaaaaaah, much better. 😁
I waited for quite a while, i think, before Chase finally got up, but once he did, we drove into Raglan to see about maybe doing some surfing.
My chest, by this point, was still pretty bad. I don’t remember if I mentioned it in my other posts, but the constant expansion of my lungs it was necessary to fill them sufficiently with oxygen to be able to climb a mountain also significantly aggravated the injury that I had had. I don’t remember if I said this either, but it was a very good thing that I didn’t go bungee jumping, as I very likely could have done a heck of a lot more damage.
Anyway, we drove into Raglan, finding a bathroom for chase, and then getting a bit of an unexpected message from the girls. We had casually invited them to go with us to Ragland, but they had decided to stay in taupo and do other activities. However, once we were in Raglan, I got a message from them saying that they were going to meet us out that way. 🙃
So Chase and I drove to one of the beaches that was popular for beginner surfers, and boy was it ever popular! Quite a bit of a turnoff to see probably several dozen if not upwards of 80 surfers on the beach, in the shallows, and out trying to catch waves. Super famous surfing area, but crowded is all get out.
As I think you clearly know already about me, I don’t like being in crowded places, especially not touristy type places. So we took our gander at the beach and the surfing area, and then we decided to meet the girls at the nearby Falls that’s not too far outside of raglan.
I can’t remember the name of the falls, so give me a minute, and I’ll go check it out…
Oh yeah, Bridalveil Falls. Should have remembered that one, as we have a bridal veil fall in Utah not too far away from where I lived several years of my life. 🙃
Anyway, we chilled with the girls at the waterfall, eating lunch at one of the few spots down below and just chatting away about life and whatnot.
I still was dealing with plenty of my tortoise shell issues, which made everything uncomfortable for me pretty much constantly, but whatever.
From there, we headed to Kawhia hot water beach, in the hopes that we would find a fairly out of the way hot water beach that would be just as cool as the super touristy one up in the coromandel peninsula.
Sadly, somehow we managed to get our tides wrong and ended up getting to the beach as the tides were coming in. Couple that with the fact that we didn’t have a shovel to dig ourselves nice little hot water pools to sit in, and it was more of a lukewarm bath and not a beachside hot tub, so to speak.
Oops.
I tried to do some boogie boarding, but the waves weren’t great, and no one else wanted to join me, so I didn’t spend too much time out there.
We ate dinner and played a form of verbal charades, at which the girls kicked our hinies rather soundly, even though English was their second language, and we were playing the game in English. 🙃
After we finished playing games, Chase and one of the girls decided they wanted to go on a walk. It was late at night, so the other girl and I headed off to bed.
While getting the car situated for bedtime, I noticed two glowing eyes staring directly at me from the tree right next to the car. At first, I thought they were those of an owl, as they looked like they were completely forward facing and close together. After excitedly calling the other girl over, however, she having a brighter headlamp than I did, could see that it was an Australian possum (much cuter than the possums in Arkansas).
Anyway, I went ahead and bed down for the night, and that was our day that day. 😊
Love to all. 😊
Lift the World
~ stephen
Lift the World 