Having a shower this morning was surprisingly difficult. I’m not used to looking down at the water leaving from the shower head at its highest extension.

I’d slept well, the neighbours quietening by 10pm and waking again at 6.42am. At least, that’s the time they started talking again. I’d been awake a couple of hours by then, my body deciding six hours of sleep was enough.

I felt that later in the day, driving down the New Zealand equivalent of an A road at pathetically low speeds, trying to retain focus on the road and other traffic.

The coffee at breakfast hadn’t helped. Nespresso machines are terrible devices, designed for midgets that think that thimbles are too large to use as coffee cups. There were tiny cups you could hide in your fist on the machine and asking it to give me two cups of coffee still only half filled one.

On the way out of town I spotted a fuel station, open even at 8am on Boxing Day. It was 6c/litre cheaper than some of its competitors too so I pulled up, spotted it was a prepay-with-card one, put in my debit card. “Cheque, Savings or Credit account?” asked the machine, as had all the ones in Australia.

Dear Anzac Financial Services Software Designers, I have a debit card. It lets me draw money from my current account. I could call my current account Wilbur (and my online banking lets me do that too) and it would still let me draw money from it. I don’t have a cheque account, I don’t have a card attached to my savings account and I have credit cards with multiple institutions, each of which provides a single card per account. So stop asking me stupid questions to which the correct answer is ‘none’ and the question entirely superfluous in the first place.

Also stop refusing a transaction on my card when I make a guess at the answer you’re looking for.

After my credit card was also declined I wandered into the garage shop to see if they had any other options. On my way in a man greeted me and asked if I was ok.

“No.”

He went to fill the car, promising that their till would accept my cards. It didn’t, my debit card reporting, “Failed transaction.” Luckily one of the credit cards did work, or at least pretended it did.

That left me finally free to explore the chunky green hills, dotted with cows, burbling streams alongside twisty roads, clumps of trees attractively nestling below rock faces. Somehow I’d left Whitianga and gone to Yorkshire.

I followed the road signs to the hot water beach, at which an underground river surfaces near the low tide mark, sharing its geothermally warmed waters with anybody that digs into the sand there. The tide was in so I watched the surfers instead, took a photograph, left.

I followed more road signs, promising to take me to one of New Zealand’s premier tourist attractions. The car park was a bus ride away from it so I saved myself the bus fare and a walk and drove on. It’s a bit of rock and a beach and I’d seen a few of those in the past 24 hours.

I found a path past wild chilli plants, their fruit starting to rot but smelling sublime.

Yeah, that was a path. It led me to a cliff edge, signs warning of kiwis in the woodland below. I didn’t spot any.

(I find it hard to hold a phone perfectly horizontal at arm’s length with the sun behind making it impossible to view the screen. Wait for the photos from my real camera which will do the view a little more justice)

I’d known to follow that path because of a brown ‘thing of interest’ sign, a global colour used to signify an opportunity for tourist disappointment across the planet. “Is that it?”

The other road signs in New Zealand remind me of ones in America, yellow diamonds. A popular one on most of the roads just stated, “Slippery when wet”. So, slippery then.

It technically only rained briefly today but New Zealand is so wet that I got rained on while many metres underground, a mountain above me, no daylight or people in sight. With my torch on I could make out discarded mining equipment and the small river underfoot. I only followed the mineshaft to its first fork, no visible light was appearing in either direction and although it may eventually have led somewhere the fork reduced the chances of me finding wherever that was, and increased the chances of me getting lost on the way back.

I’d found the shaft while hunting for a waterfall.

Nope, those were rapids. How about..

Sigh. Lots of rapids. Spectacular, but not exactly a waterfall.

Much better. Pretty, sounded nice, clear clean water, innovative use of fallen timber to frame the installation. Could be in my garden, that. Also the right size for my tiny garden. It doesn’t exactly make you come around the corner and go

Ok, THAT’s a waterfall.

Admission: I actually said that while driving past, because I could see both that waterfall and a barely smaller one on the same river just 40 yards further back. I have a photograph that includes both. The baby waterfall is also approximately 8 yards from the big one, but on a different stream.

Further admission: The lady in her 30s in the stripey dress might like to know that when leaning forwards to photograph her friend, she reveals secrets about the clothing below. I didn’t take a photograph and politely admired the other waterfall until they were done.

A long drive with a couple of small detours got me to Waitomo Caves. There are a number of places in New Zealand in which you can see glowworms lighting up the inside of caves, and Waitomo Caves is a town built around probably the most famous of them.

Sadly I hadn’t anticipated the raw expense involved. There’s rafting through the caves for $230, or a walk through a glowwormless cave for $52, or if you want to actually photograph glowworms in a cave, it’s $73. I drove up to check the site, it’s all carparks and visitor centres, cafes offering to sell tickets, but everything boils down to the same three options, the same three prices.

On the way back I spotted a hotel towering above a hill, dominating the landscape below. I acknowledged the splendour of the location, noted the somewhat worn paint on the building, wondered if it was still even functioning as a hotel.

It is. I’m staying in it too. The view doesn’t look too shabby from the hotel garden either.

Inside it feels old, very old. The decor is nearer 18th century but elegant.

The shower appears to date from the 18th century too, back when people were short enough to fit under it. It’s actually a worse height than this morning’s. (Subsequent research revealed it’s an early 20th century building with 60s era decor).

I had to wait nearly 20 minutes to check in. The reception had a sign saying it was closed, but please press the buzzer. That was one half of an intercom system, the sort you’d use in a block of flats, and its presence suggested the receptionist frequently abandoned her post. At the third buzz she finally arrived, although whether that was in response to my attempts to draw her attention or because further guests had arrived I’m not sure.

After checking in I went to find some dinner. The bar and cafe offered seafood or bones, the pizzeria was signposted but entirely missing and the local convenience store had a small sign marked ‘Cafe’ and people sat outside. I went in and found a menu which consisted of beef, lamb or chicken, or pay extra for all three. I chose the beef and lamb, skipped the salad, was offered chips instead.

It was good. The menu said it was barbecued but it felt far too juicy for a normal barbecue so they either cheated or more likely have great skills in marinading and getting the temperature right.

Cheesecake for pudding, and I’ve intentionally included the simple table at which I sat.

I love the texture of that table top. It’d be hell to work on but it’s just lovely to look at and rub your hand across.

I had all this typed up and ready by 7.30pm. Indeed, could have gone to bed then too. Except.. I was waiting for it get dark.

At 8.45 I asked Google to tell me what time it would get dark. “8.45pm” was the reply, giving the location I’m in. I looked out of the window; you wouldn’t need lights to drive.

Another site told me civil twilight would end at 9.13pm. Nautical twilight would end at 9.53pm. Research into the difference between the two told me that I actually needed astronomical twilight to end, at 10.41pm.

I set an alarm and put my head down but that plan collapsed minutes later as new neighbours moved in next door, the thuds of their suitcases on the stairs immediately replaced by a rush of water from their room. I couldn’t tell if they were filling the bath or boiling a kettle, the white noise filtered through a thin wall could match either. The next hour was bumps, creaks and muffled voices from above as the kids returned to their room. I gave up and went out.

By midnight I was lost. On foot, no idea where I was, no idea where I was heading. I had a cliff on one side, swamp the other, rainforest above blocking the stars (so effectively that it was only when I later emerged that I found clouds had come in and covered them) and the sound of fast flowing water all around.

I didn’t care. I had found what I’d been seeking, and it was better than I had expected. Everything I’d imagined and slightly more – I got to share it with two Norwegian lasses in their 20s. We stood together for 45 minutes, moving no more than 20 foot in all that time.

It took me that long to take 22 photographs. Only one of them worked out. I showed it to the two Norwegians, told them the settings on my camera. It made their night, but I have that effect on women.

What we were photographing was awe inspiring. I stood there going, “Awww!”

My mobile phone maybe doesn’t convey the awesomeness. What you see there are glowworms, on a cliff above a river. Where they cluster in numbers they show the cliff’s contours, a low pixel voxel rendition in the darkness.

There were thousands of them, the track following both sides of a river, a second stream, steep cliffs on both sides. The river vanished into a cave so the track crossed it, followed up the other side. In daylight this would have been a picturesque walk, rugged hillside and rough forest, tinkling water and green prettiness. At night you had silhouettes of the trees and what looked like fairy lights laid beneath every overhang, lighting nothing but glowing softly in the darkness. These were the glowworms, steady points of blue light everywhere you looked.

After I finished I bid the ladies goodnight and strolled confidently onwards. The track inexplicable finished so I stopped to admire a small cave, see if there were glowworms inside.

There were, but also a track leading through the hill and out the other side. That led to more tracks, more hillsides, more river, another cave, more rainforest.

That’s where I got lost. I gave up and retraced my steps, went through the cave again, crossed the river three times and returned to the carpark. The Norwegians had gone and so had everybody else, the busy carpark now empty, just a sole Japanese vehicle sat alone in the centre, a great white road barge looming in the darkness.

Today’s drive wasn’t a straight line:

After barely reaching 2km yesterday today’s 9km (much of it climbing up through the remains of a gold processing plant in a steep gorge) has demonstrated that this morning’s further running repairs to my walking shoes have been effective at preventing foot damage.

Tonight’s hotel has children in the room above. Lets hope they stop dropping things (likely each other) on the floor or they’ll be gaining some entertaining supplements to their vocabulary.

On the wall is a photograph of exactly the place I’ve already programmed into the satnav for tomorrow 🙂