I love adventure! So when I was hitching upwards from Wellington on the North Island of New Zealand in February 2009 I asked the driver if they had any idea of where I could stay that night. Any Cool Beaches close by? Waitarere was my answer. Sweet. A couple of hitches later I was at a camp site close by the beach and heard the story about this Forrest - it was suppose to be one of the places they'd filmed Gollum, not that I was to interested in finding the spots. That was not why I travelled New Zealand. (But I must admit that Mount Doom was pretty awesome!).
However my bankcard wouldn't work and the camping site was pretty expensive anyways so I went to the local store to get some cash out. As I asked the guy behind the counter if he knew anywhere where I could crash in my tent for the night without having to pay he look with huge eyes at me like he'd never heard of such a thing. But the lady, with a little daughter, behind me in line spoke up and said "Why don't you come and stay on our lawn?" Sure, sweet!
As we walked off she explained that her neighbour was out of town and I might just as well use his house, a couple of minutes later she said that she had a guest house - that they normally rented out for people on longer vacations - and I might just as well stay in there. Ha!! As we got to her place she quickly put a beer in my hand, said hi to her husband and started making dinner - vegetarian of course! They were really happy to hear my stories and said that they knew someone in Sweden who's stayed with them before.
After dinner me and the lady went to the beach, oh the beautiful beach, and checked out the sunset. Mm. We said our goodnights and I went to drink some tea, yeah! There was tea in my own little cabin with a real bed and shower. As I was writing up my adventures for the day in my Diary which I'd try to keep up to date the house suddenly started shaking. WTF?! I got real scared and ran outside after struggling ot get the door open. No one but me out in that dark night. And after a while it stopped. Shit. Is it gonna start again? Is there a big one coming on? What was the right thing to do? Why hadn't I researched this a bit better before coming to this Earthquake country? After a while I fell asleep, still scared but ok. Nothing, from what I know, got broken. But much later I found out that it had been a 4 on the Richter scale. Shit! Scary stuff!
Next morning I made my way into the Forrest and tried to find Gollum, or his remains. I never did but the Forrest sure was creeping me out. And I came up with the brilliant idea that I'd cross the low bushes that stretched about 400 meter from the Forrest edge to the beach. Couldn't be to hard could it? Guess again! With a narrow undergrowth and some thorns I soon understood why most, clever anyways, people stay out of these bushes. And as always I as way to stubborn to turn back. About an hour later I'd crossed, crawled, slide and climbed my way to the beach with a fair few cuts and bruises. Children, don't try this at home!
The Gollum Forrest
The 400 meters of Bush between the Forrest and the ocean,doesn't look to hard does it?
Me on video in that Forrest talking about whats been going on.
And Finally, The Beach. Doesn't look to impressive on photo but fuck, that thing keep going for miles and miles in each direction and even though the water was less then "yay, lets go swimming - temperature" I walked along the shore for quite a while.Today's Person: Everyone who invites a total stranger into their home and hearts. I'll be forever thankful for your help!
2 comments:
Din mormor sade ju till mig då du precis var född att att uppfostra barn är lätt. Ge henne minnen, goda som dåliga, och gör undantag.
Du har gjort detta till ditt livsmotto, vilket gör mig till den lyckligaste mamman på jorden!
Did you start talking to yourself in the forrest aswell?
I know I would