Hitching Around the North of New Zealand

Hitch Hiking

After a few great days on the Bay of Islands I had to head towards Hot Water beach. This was quite a way away and as the weather was a familiar constant light drissle I decided to aim for Auckland first and then tackle getting to the Coromandel.

I walked about 1 mile out of Paihia then dumped my stuff and got started. This was my first time hitch hiking and it took around 40 mins to get my first lift of the day. At first you are very self consious - am I doing the right thumb movement? Do I look presentable enough? Am I projecting the image of a mentally well-balanced individual who is not a serial killer? Then after a while you realise there's actually not too much to do to improve your chances other than standing in the right place. If people want to pick someone up, they will pick someone up.

I got 5 lifts that day and it took around 5 hours to get into Auckalnd. One of my lifts was a chap who was selling Sunflowers called Simon. He had been offered a piece of land by a farmer on which to park his campervan on the condition that he did something that improved the land. The farmer gave a somewhat mixed reaction when he said he would grow Sunflowers, but left him to it nonetheless. Now he was selling thousands of them for $1 a go to local florists. He took my around to some of the local stores and gave me an in depth comentary on exactly what conditions a sunflower requires to grow. He then took me on a ride to visit his local drug dealer, an old Swiss woman who lived in a garage but sadly she wasn't home.

My last lift of the day was a stroke of luck as having waited an hour for my previous lift, I had barely stuck my thumb in the air before I got picked up by a bunch of decorators. This was three massive Tongan guys (all squeezed into the front of the van) who were returning to Auckland from a job in the west. I jumped into the back amongst the cans of paint and made myself fairly comfortable on the floor. Meanwhile in the front they had a pretty eclectic choice of music. My funniest moment so far in hitch hiking was listening to these guys sing to Glee. When they all joined in with the chorus of "Is it the look in your eyes, or is it this dancing juice? Who cares baby, I think I wanna marry you." I almost wet myself.

After a few days in Auckland due to some seriously bad weather I was on the road again and had to deal with the troublesome task of flagging a lift on a Motorway. Simon, the Sunflower growing hippie, stoner had assured my this was a piece of cake and that all I needed to do was stand on the 'on ramp.' After an hours thumb waving I was feeling pretty dejected and was on my way to Carbon Dioxide poisoning, but just when I had hit rock bottom some Indian lads stopped for me. The driver said they had had to spend the previous night in Auckland as he had had his car impounded for some sort of driving offence which he assured me had been sorted out. All of a sudden flashes of 'Police Camera Action' came into my head and I could imagine the cop who stopped us nodding in a disbelieving and very patronising way if I told him I didn't know them and how should I know the car was actually 3 cars, was stollen and full of drugs? They turned out to be great lads though and we didn't stop discussing cricket the whole time.

It only took me three lifts that day - the second came from a guy who was a standby truck driver and was paid (miles and hours) just to dive to various stunning parts of NZ and wait around in case Big Danny or Monkey Nuts were feeling under the weather and unable to drive. The last guy I got a lift from was a real life New Zealand lacross player who worked as a Chartered Account half the year and appeared to be on holiday for the rest of it. Although as he was in charge of the fundraising for the club that seemed like a job in itself anyway.

Hotwater Beach

I got to Hotwater beach and camped at what turned out to be the only campsite in the village, but mercifully it was sheltered by massive trees. I wasn't about to make the same mistake again and get woken up by a Typhoon. The beach itself as its name suggests has areas of hot water under the sand. This unusual phenomenom caused a lot of normally sane people to completely ignore the sea and dig their holes and sit in the shade of the cliff in some lukewarm water for just long enough to justify to themselves the $5 cost of hiring a spade for the purpose. I actually spent most of my time there in the sea, which was pretty intense. There was only a band of about 10 metres of the beach you were permitted to swim in and that had 6 foot waves and a serious rip tide. After I had finished messing around in the sea, half of the beach had gone home so I decided to save the effort and the money and jump in someone else's hole (so to speak). Aside from the hotwater business it was a really impressive beach - nice sand, big waves and nice bay. This was my first taste of something NZ is not well known for, but what I would later find out: NZ has some awesome beaches that are every bit as good Austrailia's but without the things that like to kill you.

The campsite that night was made up of a mixture of what seemed like seasoned Kiwi campers and european backpackers in campervans. No other lone hitch hikers living in tents - yeah, I was doing it the hard way - I felt like Bear Grills.. if Bear had access to a kitchen, a time limited hot shower and a mini mart.