On Friday I was waiting for the clock to tick down so I could bolt from the cube farm, and spontaneously booked a tent site in Raglan. The Rip Curl Pro surf competition was on, the weather forecast was good, I checked with the BF, sorted a tent from my grandmother and sent a lame excuse to my Patrol captain to get out of Lifegaurding my weekend away. The stars were aligned promisingly.
Started out mid-morning in my trusty steed Trigger - the 1975 Triumph, packed to the hilt with gear and surfboards. Triggers top speed is about 80kph, but he makes it feel like 160kph due to the large about of rattling and shaking involved and the lack of power steering (parallel parking him is on a par with a Les Mills Pump Class). The alternative choice was Little Red, the BF's early 90's era Ford Laser. Little Red has skin cancer, no stereo as it was broken into outside my place a few months ago, and smells like wet wetsuits, discarded fast-food and rotten upholstery. The advantages of Little Red is that he is super fuel efficient and will go for miles on the sniff of an oily rag, and his top speed is about 97kph. Niether car is particularly roadworthy and Trigger got the nod after Little Red failed his warrant last week and needs new brake pads. Chances of Trigger being selected for this journey are a little like that of Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer who didnt have a sh*t-show until there was a white-out.
Anyway, so we started out mid-morning and decided to make a detour to Matamata (one of Waikatos finest urban centres) to "have a flutter on the ponies"...aparently. Well I am not a fan of gambling, or horse racing for that matter but decided to extend the olive branch, and give it a go with an open mind due to the BFs fanatacism for it. Beginners luck prevailed and I came away even - probably due to the conservative in me. Learned a wee bit about the sport and even enjoyed myself; although I could have done with a warning about the dress code beforehand, it wasnt too big a deal. It is Matamata after all.
Arrived in Raglan. Checked into the campground, by which time we were hungry, hot and scratchy. Unpacked the tent to find my grandmother had duped us by failing to include the tent fly...I reckon she did it on purpose for a laugh but it wasnt funny at the time (me accidentally dropping his pillows in the dirt was the straw that broke the camel though) and resulted in a wee tanty from the BF who sulked and proclaimed he was off to book a hotel room. I went timidly back to reception and begged for a tent we could borrow and was fortunate they found something for us. The tent could just about fold into a matchbox. It looked like something parents set up on the beach for little kids to play in, not designed for 2 adults to sleep comfortably.
After a cold swim and some food to remedy both of our hangryness (anger from being hungry) and we cheered up and laughed it off.
Not to stop a good theme, the next day followed a similar pattern. I didnt take my phone with me so I had about 50 missed calls and messages, mostly from my mother who thought we were surely dead in the Tsunami which resulted from the Chilean earthquake. Neither of us had a clue about any threat until we were reading the sign before preceeding down to the "closed beach" with thousands of other Raglanites. ASIDE: New Tui Billboard "NZ Civil Defence Tsunami Warning. Yeah Right.". After getting sufficiently wet and sandy and sunburnt and hungry, we retreated to higher ground in search of a waterhole for a fresh water swim on our way back to Hamilton for the 20/20 (which it turns out was actually being played in Christchurch!). After about 2 hours of gravel roads and scouting dirty black cress-filled farm drains we were directed to by locals (who clearly were having a good laugh at our expense) we gave up and headed home with our backs saturated in sweat fusing to the vinyl seats in my car which has zero airconditioning or functioning fan.
yet another ben stiller movie-worthy adventure. may they always remain comic.
Mahalo.
Exhausted. C.K.
