Hakuna Matata

Hightailing it out of Piha (checking Alan wasn’t behind us on his bike) we made our way down South, back through Auckland, and all the way to geothermal Rotorua.

You could hardly fail to notice arriving in Rotorua, what with the heavy stench of sulphur taking you back to your high school chemistry days and the steaming cracks in the ground. The place is bizarre!

After our extravagant overnight stay in the Piha Holiday Park it was time to get back to basics, tighten the purse strings and find a Department of Conservation camp-site to rest for the night before exploring the boiling pools, exploding geysers and bubbling mud baths the next day. 

…………………easier said than done…………………

We were given a map by a deceivingly nice lady in the Tourist Information Centre who crossed the map to show us the whereabouts of each DOC site and sent us on our merry way. Little did we know this woman actually harboured a secret hatred for the English and sent us on a wild goose chase to our untimely demise. Either that, or she had a very sick sense of humour. Her map sucked!

We set off from the information office at 4pm and expected to arrive at our destination around 30 minutes later. We followed the map absolutely, no wrong turns, no mistakes, just like it said State Highway 5 to Highway 30, third left, then carry on straight until you hit the lake and inevitably reach the site. Easy. No problem. Only this road seemed longer than we thought. Much, much longer.

We weren’t surprised when we hit a gravel track, in fact we saw this as a good sign. Most DOC camp-sites seem accessible by similar trails. We were nearly there… surely.

“Jeez this road is longer than I thought”

Chad studies map and replies “I’m pretty sure there’s only supposed to be a forest on one side of us”

“but we took all the right turns… right?”

“yeah, yeah we’ll probably arrive soon”

Only we didn’t. Not that hour. It was now after 5, there was no one around, not a building in sight, we were still on the same gravel track and we were now running low on fuel. Excellent.

“Should we go back? We should make it back – the fuel light has only just come on”

“But there was no fuel station back there”

“But there were people at least”

According to Chad’s watch/compass/everything but a time machine, we were travelling North and according to the coordinates it gave us and our map if we continued North we’d hit civilisation soon and all would be well. Except the watch/compass/definitely not the delorean was wrong and it wasn’t.

We kept going and going, slowly tumbling along the single lane dusty track for mile after mile after f’in mile.

Another hour passed, the landscape hadn’t changed, the petrol light was flashing, we’d seen no one.

Me: “Do we have water?”

Chad: “A Bit”

Me: “At least we have our bed and food, we can try and find a place to pull in and make a help sign out of our cereal box like the Germans”

Chad: “Hmm logging trucks will pass tomorrow at least”

Me: “What day is it?”

Chad: “Shit. Tomorrow’s Saturday”

Me: “Maybe loggers work Saturdays?”

Another hour passed without a change of scene. We were quiet and tense and kinda pissed off by now.

Chad: “If we have to sleep down here I’ll run for help in the morning” but even the prospect of physical torture wasn’t cheering him up.

6.30pm and Peggie started to chug and we were becoming delirious.

“We could hunt possums to stay alive.”

“And burn all our clothes to keep warm.”

“Really?! We’re surrounded by wood.”

“Yes but we don’t have an axe.”

“Ah. Good point.”

7pm. “Is that a mirage or is that a car?! HEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLP!!!!”

They drove on.

7.05pm and there were more cars (Alan – We believe you!)

7.10pm and we hit a tarmac road (Hallelujah!)

7.15pm and we reached a fuel station and were (ahem) out of the woods (I’m here all night people!)

So now there was just the small matter of finding out where we actually were.

Fuel attendant: “Where are you? Well you’re in Awakeri…” “…How far from Rotorua? Oh I dunno, I’d say about 80kms North of Rotorua guys”

We’d started about 35kms South of Rotorua…

So instead of our lakeside destination close to the places we wanted to see the next day, we ended up by the sea, cleverly parked between a Tsunami warning sign and a train track, on what turned into a wild and stormy, wave crashing, thunder breaking, pretty scary night in a small town called Matata. 

Despite the hazardous sleeping situation, we lived to tell the tale and Rotorua was well worth it...