There is a well known saying that life is like a roller coaster; by that we don’t mean it’s loud and makes you dizzy, or that there’s a chance that the person you’re sat beside might be sick on you... No what we mean is that it has it’s ups, and it has it’s downs. The question is though, when you’re spiralling down to the ground at 100 miles per hour do you scream, or do you relax and enjoy the ride, knowing that pretty soon you’ll be heading up again?
As of last Saturday, a series of unfortunate events has meant that we’re currently hurtling downwards into a costly corkscrew. The GoPro that we bought just weeks before our trip now sits at the bottom of a lake, and our car which we’ve since named ‘Frodolf’ (no prizes for guessing how we came up with that name) decided on Tuesday that it just wasn’t in the mood anymore for driving.
Back to Saturday though when our camera went for a swim... it was the start of the downhill for us, and that whole evening was spent with our heads down, as Liam, upset by the loss of his new toy, had managed to share his bad mood with Sabina like an unavoidable cold.
Liam was miserable all night! I tried everything to cheer him up but nothing worked. Eventually, his miserable mood spread on me and all what followed was silence ...
It carried on until Sunday too. We were steadily preparing to move out of our airbnb, undecided on where to go next, but the silence caused by Liam’s mood wasn’t making things any easier. After a bit of an emotional drama and hours of not talking we finally got ourselves together and went on a GoPro recovery mission; we had managed to contact some scuba divers who were willing to help us retrieve the GoPro with no mention of any money exchange.
It was a glimpse of hope, and things were suddenly starting to look better as we drove back to Lake Wainamu, putting our job hunting temporarily to one side. All we needed was permission from the land owner to drive the scuba equipment to the lake, something which surprisingly turned out to be much easier than we expected. Things were now starting to look really good.
Rather dissapointingly though, this was the moment the scuba team decided to unload the bombshell on us that they were actually expecting $500 as payment for their services... so feeling let down by the sudden cash-talk and once again in a bad mood, we went back to square one and re-thought our recovery mission. This was to absolutely no success, and to cut the story short... we eventually gave up and concluded that maybe life wouldn’t be so bad without a GoPro - after all... we had other cameras right?
That night we tried free camping for the first time. We were heading south anyway, and given the circumstances we decided it was probably best to not spend any more money for the time being. It was also a good opportunity to test out our car to see how suitable it would be for camping. The park we stayed at was called Kaiaua Boat Club, close to Hanua Ranges National Park. It’s right by the sea, got all the amenities you could need and even streetlights, which together made for a very easy first night spent in our car. Because this experience was so good in fact, we were inspired to continue living in our car until we found somewhere to base ourselves for a little longer.
If there’s one downside to free camping it’s that in addition to restrictions on the amount of spaces to park, most of the campsites have short time limits on the number of night’s you can stay, before you need to drive some distance to the next one. This particular campground had a one-night restriction so when Monday came, we drove down to Taupo to look around for jobs. However, because we’re effectively as fast as a herd of snails when it comes to quite literally anything, by the time we arrived in town it was too late to do this. We ended up going for a short walk next to Reid Park Farm, the campsite where we settled that night. On our walk we came across an old vehicle left to rust in the forest and took some good photos, but that’s about all we had time for on Monday.
Hoping we’d have better luck in Taupo the next day, we returned to town, and over lunch in Mcdonalds we searched for some nearby work opportunities. Taupo isn’t actually as nice as we thought to be honest... more like a holiday town on a lake, but that’s about it. For a day out it’s not bad - the lake is the size of Singapore (good for watersports) and there’s enough shops to keep you busy for hours, for us though, we struggled to find somewhere good to work, and that was really the only reason we went.
Still full of optimism though, we tried our luck on the other side of the mountains, going further south to the village of Whakapapa. NZ’s biggest ski fields are here, and a lot of seasonal work can be found in the area for this reason. Our timing wasn’t the best, and most places didn’t require any staff until the start of winter, but we caught word of a hotel in the area that was apparently always hiring... it was even close by. Something about it just felt right, so without wasting time we drove to the hotel to ask in person if they had any positions with our name on.... well, we almost did... about 5 minutes from the hotel our car suddenly lost power - no warning, no signs, just cut out.
We pulled over and tried to start the engine a few times, but it just turned over with no sign of firing up at all.. like the fuel tank was dry, only the gauge was telling us otherwise. Scratching our heads we thought about what to do... no tools, we didn’t have breakdown cover and couldn’t ring anyone for help. We were stranded by the roadside, couldn’t see anything around for miles, and had no idea how long it would be until we would see another car. Could it get any worse? Fast forward a few hours and with the help of a friendly passing-by family and their toolkit we figured out that our fuel gauge was actually broken, so turns out we didn’t have the third of a tank we thought we did, but luckily all that was required was a quick trip to a nearby garage, and after buying a jerry can we filled up our car at the roadside and were good to go again.
Once again we missed our opportunity to ask for jobs that day. We stayed at another free location, this one called Urchine Campsite. It had basic facilities including a rainwater dish-washing station (no rain = no water) and a cooking area/shelter.
Tuesday had been another stressful day. The next morning we were determined to find work and went straight back to the hotel after breakfast, this time actually making it to the car park. We walked in through the front doors and immediately felt out of place. There was us having just left a campsite, without showering for days and hair a mess from sleeping in a car, stepping into a hotel that looked like it could swallow up our entire monthly budget at the minibar alone. We were greeted at the front desk by a smartly dressed porter who showed us to a waiting area. We sat down and were told a manager would be down to see us shortly.
While waiting we admired the room we were in, it had huge windows with amazing views of the nearby mountains, and a piano player in the centre entertaining the guests. It was a little different to what we were used to. “You must be Sabina and Liam?” A man who looked like he should have been a rugby player appeared in a snazzy blue suit, “can I get you guys a drink?” Our stress was washed away over a coffee and chat, and Marco, the man we had just met introduced us to the hotel’s head chef Chris, who explained how eager they were to take on new staff. It was sorted then, we had our first jobs. We took the position of kitchen hands and agreed to start next week.
That night the stars shone bright. We parked our car on an incline so we could look straight up at the sky through our car’s rear window. Liam was proud that he had come up with such an ingenious idea until we kept sliding to the front of the car during the night. Looking back, it was actually a really poor solution to a problem that we didn’t have in the first place... but at least our luck had started to turn, and for the first time that week, it looked like we were finally on the up again.
Up next: Huka Falls Walkway
