An American, A Broad: East As, Part I

Here's part One of my vacation last week:

18/4: Arrive in Taupo after a 6-hour bus ride. @ 4:00. Check in to the Taupo Urban Retreat (which looks awesome from the outside). Slowly begin to realize that this is one of the lower-end hostels in Taupo, despite the excitement of the $10 BBQ dinner (including two glasses of wine) that night. Caroline (my friend from Uni) and I decide that, in spite of the rain, we’d like to stretch our legs after the massive bus trip, so we grab our rainjackets and decide to hike up to the “Honey Hive”, which has, among other things, FREE fruit-wine tastings! By the time we hike up to the very wet lookout, which is not far from the Honey Hive, we realize that it’s already 5:00, which is when it closes. Oh well! Try to take panoramic photos of Lake Taupo from there, but the clouds and rain keep the shots from being really pretty. Got a couple of shots of a rainbow, but it looked better in person.

We returned to Urban Retreat completely soaked, and found our 6-person room STINKY!!! The combination of the rain, no ventilation, and 3 obnoxious German backpackers who lay their wet clothes out all over the place made the room smell like an armpit.
when Caro and I finally decided to go to bed (after waiting an hour for our BBQ and drowning our sorrows in cheap red wine from a box), the German kids come bounding in, turn the light on, and then proceed to talk in full voice for-EVER. No concept of there being enyone else in the room who may be trying to sleep.
This repeated in the morning after their alarm woke us all up at 7:00 am. Great way to start the day!
19/4: We met the Kiwi bus, and our driver Marama (nicknamed Ma, since apparently North Americans have trouble pronouncing it properly -- myself excluded!), and thus began our ride from Taupo, thru Napier (an art deco town) and finally to Gisborne that evening.

We went straight to the grocery store and bought wine and fixings for a BBQ that night (notice a trend?) prepared by Ma and another Kiwi bus driver on holiday called Dennis. Had a great time sitting out on the deck of our hostel (Surf Chalet) and watched a video of Whale Rider after dinner.

20/4: another 7:00 am wake-up, this time thanks to the two Dutch girls travelling with us who happily and loudly took phone calls at the crack of dawn. Is this a European thing?
Went outside and chatted with a Brazilian girl who worked at the hostel and had been in NZ for 1 year and 2 months...just working, hanging out, and surfing. Ah, the life!
After breakfast, Caro and I went for a walk along the beach and ran into some surfers:

Headed back for a 10:00 am departure, which was actually pretty prompt for Ma and his "ish" time.

Molly, the Chalet's dog, moping on Ma's car seat because we had to leave.

On the way to our next destination (Rangitukia, for a farmstay) we stopped off at Tolaga Bay, which has the second longest wharf in the southern hemisphere. The wharf itself is pretty pointless and not being used at all anymore (since it's use was primarily to load goods and supplies before roads were built), but it still makes some cool photos:

Under the wharf

Claire and Caro next to the wharf at Tolaga Bay

Our next destination was Rangitukia, and the Eastender Farmstay:

The 'farm' of the farmstay is not actually a functionaing farm anymore, although at the time it was a sheep farm, and we stayed in what were formerly the sheep-shearers quarters. While a bunch of folks went for a harseride (I did it last year and my butt's still sore) Caro and I decided to try to find our way through the hills and pigs and cows to the beach:

Awwww...eat them right up.

The cows here just stop everything they're doing and stare at you. It's a bit threatening, actually.

See? (This one we affectionately named 'The Evil Cow' as it looked like it would snap any minute and attack us.)

Not so cute are they, folks?

Jackpot! (wait, now we have to go back around the cows again...)

We returned to the farm to do some bonecarving. Some of you have seen the ones I did last year. As well as greenstone (or pounamou or jade) Maoris carve amulets out of cow and whale bone and wear them around their necks. The person who makes them is to put sweat and energy into the carving, then wear them around their necks and close to their hearts. Then, when returning home, you give the amulet to a loved one. It's quite a nice thought, actually.

Halfway through our bonecarving, we had dinner which was a traditional hangi meal. This is a meal made up of meat (usu. chicken and lamb), potatoes, kumara (NZ sweet potato), stuffing, and cabbage, and cooked in the ground. It comes out kind of casserole-like and veeeeeery hearty.
We wrapped up the evening with table tennis in the barn, and beers around the fire.
The next morning, a bunch of people woke up at 5:45 to walk to the top of a nearby hill to see the sunrise. Rangitukia is the first place on the East Cape to see the sunrise. I stayed in bed.
Later in the morning, however, I took a walk up the same hill, but obviously at a decent hour: