(written on February 15th from notes taken previously)
I didn’t sleep much after a late night veging. ๐
I stopped briefly off at Paines Ford first thing after driving back down Tฤkaka Hill and back toward town, though I don’t remember doing anything there. Maybe I just used the bathroom? ๐คท
I don’t think I did any swimming or cliff jumping.
I probably checked to see if people were cliff jumping, and found that nobody was, because it was early in the morning.
Anyway, my first adventure stop of the day was revisiting Rawhiti Cave, a place Chase and I had visited last time as well.
I think there was only one other car in the car park when I got there, and unlike last time when it was wet, the trail was safer this time because it wasn’t slippery and muddy like last time. It wasn’t awful last time, but I do remember it being a bit slick.
Chatted with a young lady at the top for a little bit, and then chatted with a gentleman named Robert who was a naturist (he was wearing clothes at the cave ๐).
We chatted about all sorts of stuff for a good long while, including a place he mentioned near Rotorua where there was a hot waterfall and an absolutely incredible glow-worm experience in the little slot canyon that has the hot creek before the hot waterfall.
Apparently, the hot waterfall and creek was right on the backside of the naturist organization’s property, And though not part of the property itself, was simplest to access via the property, as in order to get to it otherwise, you would need a boat to go across the lake and then to hike up.
He mentioned that the place was open to anyone, and that it was only something like $30 a night to stay there.
The only catch was it was not a clothing optional place: It was a clothing prohibited place. ๐
After my experience yesterday with all the topless 20 somethings, I didn’t actually completely dismiss it out of hand as I might have in the past, again thinking that perhaps it could be good for me. ๐ถ
I hung out at the cave far longer than I expected just chilling, and then chatting with Robert, and then chatting a bit with a 20-something? local couple–the guy being an arborist, which I knew a little bit about.
From Rawhiti Cave, I started making my way over to Wainui Falls. Someone had mentioned to me that you could cliff jump from those falls as well, so I thought that might be fun.
On the drive over, as I was coming down one of the hills toward a beautiful beach, I pulled over to take some pictures because of the stunning scenery.
There was another gentleman who was also pulled over, so I struck up a conversation with him, a gentleman from Germany named Thomas, And we ended up chatting for like two hours in the hot and sweaty heat. ๐
I forget everything that we talked about, but he was a super cool guy, and I grabbed his WhatsApp number to stay in contact, having invited him to join me at Paines Ford for a little cliff jumping if he were interested after he finished enjoying the beach (he was planning on spending a good chunk of the day at that beach at the bottom of the hill).
It was a lot longer of a walk to Wainui Falls than I expected, and though I’m sure people cliff jump there regularly, I wasn’t quite up for it.
I took some pictures, and I even got in and swam and did some depth checking to see if you could safely cliff jump, but the place to cliff jump was high above, and it wasn’t easy to get to.
I could see off in the distance a rope that someone had set up to scramble up what looked like a long near drop off, And that was a deal breaker for me.
I’m just not going to trust a rope someone else has put up until I’ve had a chance to inspect it myself–its condition, how it was tied, what it was tied to, etc.
When I got back to my van, just as I was getting ready to leave someone pulled in behind me. I had parked just in front of the sign and next to the fence, super close to the fence.
The group that came from that van had started the hike and were off in the distance when, having completely forgotten that they were behind me, I put my van in reverse (because I have the sign in front of me and wanted to get some space to get out), and promptly smacked them pretty hard–hard enough to jolt me pretty good and make my heart sink.
I didn’t have any insurance. It’s not required in New Zealand.
I pulled a little bit forward and then got out to inspect the damage.
๐ซฃ
I looked all around the bumper, and miraculously, I couldn’t see anything obvious that I had done to their van. I could see some scratches, but they looked too high to be from my bumper. The driver side of their bumper was slightly detached, but I could see that the paint had been rubbing away there for a while, so it wasn’t a new issue…
Was I going to get off scott free? ๐ค๐ค๐ค
I wasn’t sure. With the scratches on the bumper, I didn’t think they were from me, but I didn’t want to just leave if they were, so what did I do?
I backed my van right back up against their van again to see exactly where the bumpers were touching. ๐
It looked to me like I was off the hook, so I pulled away and parked in a different part of the parking lot.
I went back and inspected their van a bit. There wasn’t any evidence of damage at all on mine.
I looked and looked, and I thought that maybe there might be a little bit of damage that might have been caused by me, so I brought my van all the way back over, actually backed it into their bumper again but ever so gently, and took some pictures of it that way to be able to see it even when it wasn’t pressed together.
Then I moved my van back away.
After doing a whole bunch of inspecting here, there, and everywhere, I was pretty sure that none of the scratches were from me, and I was about to call it good when I decided to do some testing by actually pressing against the bumper with my hands to see if I could see anything cracked or broken or anything.
It was then that I didn’t need to see that where one bolt held the bumper in place, if I pushed the bumper plastic in, I could see that the plastic around that bolt and washer was cracked.
Super tiny. Only noticeable by pressing on the plastic, but it was indeed most likely something caused by what I had done.
[sigh]
So I wasn’t off the hook. ๐
I took some more pictures of that exact spot with the little crack–a half-moon-shaped crack around the large washer the boat was pressing against the plastic, and then a little spot where it looked like the plastic was slightly discolored from having been stressed in a direction it shouldn’t have gone.
Then I spent probably 30-45 minutes writing a message to the owner of the van on a piece of cardboard food packaging that I put my WhatsApp number on and then slid into the driver side door, so they’d see it when they got back to their van.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it took me an hour and a half or two hours to take my photos, recreate the scene, write the message, etc.
[sigh]
I had hoped to make it back to Paines Ford a lot earlier to enjoy the cliff jumping again. ๐
And then there were the nerves of what might happen, how much I might have to pay to get their vehicle fixed if they were wanting me to. ๐
Though it was late, I did actually end up going back to Paines Ford and cliff jumping a little bit. It was late enough in the day that most people had cleared out, but there were a few people left.
I helped out some Argentinians with the rope swing and whatnot, and there were a couple of young boys there with their dad, and one of the boys wanting to jump from the high spot where I was (which he did multiple times ๐).
I had tried to wade back across the river to get a head-on picture instead of just the ones from the side, but the river was so deep and swift where I was trying to cross that I couldn’t stay standing straight up for very long before getting pushed downriver.
Oh well. The pictures I got were better than no pictures at all.
After that, I veged out a little bit before finally heading to that place that I had driven by last night, that crowded place by the river that I wasn’t sure was a freedom camping spot.
But indeed it was, and I found a spot to park for the night right over next to the toilet. I veged out some more, and called it a day.
Oh! Did I mention the people who owned the van I bumped weren’t really concerned about the tiny bit of damage done? ๐๐ฎโ๐จ
Definitely, a relief. It took me sending the picture with the red lines drawn on it for them to be able to see where the damage was, and they never replied back to that message… so… ๐
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 