Highs and Lows

This is Liz, with a tale of two days ago:

Monday afternoon (I think it was Monday), after cleaning, and lunch, and showers, and making sandwiches, we, with our housemates, drove south, through the same beautiful, green, hilly landscape that continues to wow us. After an hour and a half, we reached Mt. Manaio in Whangarei Heads. We left the little burgundy sedan in the otherwise empty car park, shouldered our backpacks, and headed up the (mini) mountain. It was an awesomely hot and sunny day.

It took us about forty-five minutes to make it to the top - forty-five long, sweaty, calf-aching minutes. For some reason, instead of sensibly building nice dirt switchbacks up the mountain, the trail builders had put in numerous giant, steep staircases. We climbed stairs for EVER. Jen and I slogged along, and Jamie and Lewis took up the rear, using their F-word-heavy vocabulary and occasionally resorting to actually crawling up the steps.


At the top, however, we all agreed that the climb had been worth it. We had a three hundred and sixty degree view of our fantastical temporary home. Mountains, rolling hills, sheep-dotted farmland, and then the sea sprawled all around us in bright greens and blues. We climbed around on the spires of bare rock at the top; long ago, Maori men used to bring their dead chiefs up here to the top of this sacred mount. We ate bananas and biscuits (oops - cookies) and lounged in the sun.

Eventually, we made our way down again, stopping at another lookout to freak ourselves out by peering over the drop-off and to take a few jumping pictures (my favorite.) Then we ran the rest of the way down, hopping down the steps and sprinting the straight-aways. It was simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating. (Jen might go more for the 'terrifying,' but that's because she had three of us "rhinoceroses," as she kindly referred to us as, huffing on her tail.)


But now the story changes. When we made the bottom and rounded the last curve of trail into the car park, the sedan still the only resident, we were greeted with a nasty shock. The front driver's side window had been smashed in. There was glass everywhere. It lay in sparkly, powdery piles all over the concrete and the seats inside. We rummaged through the car's interior, and the trunk, which had been popped from the inside.

My brand-new iPod, and Jen's purse (containing her wallet, bank cards, drivers' license, passport, our cell phone, and many personal valuables) were gone.

We were all shocked. New Zealand was supposed to be the land of happy backpackers and kiwis, not the land of petty theft. When Lewis ran up to the bar at the top of the hill to use their phone, however, they told him it was the third theft in that lot in as many days. Could've put a bloody sign up. We phoned the police, made a report, and made our saddened way home.

Halfway back, we pulled into a pub. The bartender, upon hearing our sad story, hooked us up with a free pitcher of the local brew, and we sat outside in the sun by the harbor, watched the sea gulls, and had a mini beer. Jen phoned the banks to cancel her cards. We were all still reasonably cheerful, and remain upbeat about the situation. It's hard to be bummed out when you're sitting in the sun, staring at a big blue ocean, talking with your good friends and enjoying a free (quarter-) pint. Even on the drive home, when it suddenly started pouring and we all got pelted with chilly wind and raindrops from the open window, we just snuggled up to each other and turned the heat on high.

It was definitely a day of ups and downs, but we've worked things out: made a police report and an appointment to replace the passport, and bought a new cell phone. At the end of the day, it's just missing stuff - and we still have the memories of staring out over the blue-green world, and running down a mountain, top speed, flying on the tips of our toes.