(written today!)
With daylight losing time kicking in, I had gone to bed earlier than I usually do and thus had woken up earlier than usual this morning. 🙃
I took the opportunity, being as early as it was in the morning, to work on my journal catch-up efforts, spending most of the morning and part of the afternoon engaged writing and posting several entries.
At first, I was writing while perched atop the hill I’d camped at (the same perch I had used last time I was here). Butt, needing a toilet, I headed down toward the river, availed myself of the long drop, and then parked my little butt on the side of perhaps my favorite river in all of New Zealand (you probably remember, the mighty Waikato 😊). The Hokitika River at Hokitika Gorge, and the Waikato River, a little after it escapes Lake Taupo are probably my two favorite riverside perches in the country.
I watched a local… father and son? jump in the river, the dad pretty much immediately but the son afraid of the coldness of the water.
Eventually, he jumped in, though. 🙂
And the father’s jumps had epic splashes. 😎
I took a few pictures, trying to time this picture taking with the biggest part of the splash. For whatever reason, I can’t find a setting on my phone that does shots in quick succession automatically. 🤔
I would expect that such an expensive phone has that as an option, but I’ll have to do a little bit of research, as I couldn’t find it right away.
The father was happy when I offered to send him the pictures, and I was grateful that he showed me how to share pictures with a nearby device via Bluetooth. I’d never done it before. 🙃
I bid him farewell and then continued working on my journal entries. I had wanted to spend the day putting the finishing touches on my roof repair, but… there’s so much more to do, and I’ve got to wait 24 hours for the construction adhesive to cure anyway.
It’s possible that I could paint it before it fully cures, but the instructions simply said that it was paintable and didn’t give a time frame.
Combine the required 24-hour cure time with the rain that began to fall shortly after noon, and… nothing got done on my rust-repair efforts today. 😅
Nor did I get an ad posted. 😬 I should have posted an ad a week ago. 😅
I did, however, get caught up on my journal entries. 🥳
And I did take a lovely cold plunge, as it rained, in the Waikato River. 🙃
And I did drive to the Hot ‘N Cold rivers where I soaked, pain free 🙏, for hours. 😁
The hot river experience was a little different this time. Like the hot spring tubs in Kaweka Forest Park, The hotter river wasn’t as hot as last time, and the colder river was a lot colder than last time. There were even pockets of cold water coming out of the river bed in places.
Definitely a significantly different experience than the first time, but maybe a little better? At least, I appreciated the starker contrast of temperatures. I like having hot next to cold. Last time it was really hot next to two bathwater. And this time it was hot tub water next to warmish/cool water.
I’m still a little dumbfounded by how early it gets dark. It was almost dark by 6:00. 😶
Good golly!
I guess that will be one bonus of returning to the United States… longer days again (though I’m not looking forward to the hot summer 😅).
Anyway, here I am, just about to hit 8:30. The day is long over. The night is young, but I guess I’ll be going to bed earlyish again?
Unless I vege out for a good while. 😅
G’night, y’all. 🤍
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 