I started the day in a bad mood. Something to do with 3 hours sleep, 3 hours trying to sleep then getting up before 7am because of the noise from other guests.

They weren’t making much noise at all, but every weight change made the floor creak, I knew precisely when they had a shower or even just used the sink.

Added to that my phone had determined during the night that I had received email, but lacked the ability to connect long enough to tell me what it was or let me view it. I gave up, got up, left.

At 9am I’d been driving too long, stopped for coffee. Ended up eating a decent breakfast there too. I’d chosen that cafe because it promised wifi, and the lady at the till gave me a voucher. I could connect to the wifi, it asked for a voucher code and took two minutes to load a page telling me I had 500MB of data in credit.

40 minutes later leaving the cafe I still had 500MB of credit. Every time I tried to access a web page it redirected me to the site telling me I had 500MB of credit. That page included a link titled ‘To the internet’, clicking on which opened a new tab that went to the site telling me I had 500MB of credit.

Even that site was taking minutes to load. Breakfast should’ve put me in a good mood but New Zealand’s continued inability to provide basic services scuppered that.

The drive took me through more Yorkshire type dales, steep hills and sheep, a couple of stops for photographs. By late morning I’d reached Hamilton, found a museum. Inside were cars, pretty ones.

They’re all part of a private collection, clearly someone with disposable income. $20 was a bit expensive for the 40 minutes I spent inside but far too little to cover the insurance for the cars, let alone buying them. I suspect my favourite in the collection is far from the most expensive, but I still can’t afford the £200k it’d cost to get one of my own.

I drove to another museum, this one in the town centre. That led to me paying for parking for the first (and likely only) time this trip. It cost $1/hour, and charging stopped 40 minutes after I arrived. Having no coins on me I ended up paying $1.60, the credit card surcharge no doubt less than the accompanying currency exchange fee I’ll find when I check my bill.

The museum itself was free to enter and worth the cost of parking. I’d gone to learn more about the Maori but left disappointed on that front. There was a nice boat and some carvings but I’d learned more in the Army museum the day before. Another third of the exhibits were a memorial to the local men that hadn’t returned from the wars, and the battles in which they fought.

The final exhibit proved quite excellent. While the title is a tad misleading (the included photograph by Steve McCurry isn’t even the best one he took that day) there are nonetheless some superb photographs in there. I’d already browsed the images online, but it’s nice to see them printed two and three foot high in person.

My take on selfies.

Tonight’s hotel actually has working internet. It’s also incredibly small.

There are trees growing in the shower.

While the promised self-service laundry doesn’t actually exist (so I’ll have to wait until tomorrow for that) the lady in the next cabin has promised me possums later. She’s staying here as she’s technically homeless, her landlord selling her home and the new owner asking her to leave so that they could move in. Apparently she’s been here three weeks already and had an argument with her partner this morning, so he’s moved out, leaving her with no transport and no way of lighting her cigarettes.

While irritated that I have to get dressed and go outside to use the toilet and get a shower, it is a nice place to stay. Silence at last. The guy manning reception was actually building a new cabin when I arrived, rapid expansion clearly a priority for him. Having arrived very early to do some laundry I gave up and just drove into a nearby housing estate, hoping to find a shop.

I found several.

The ‘Best of British’ had a selection of traditional British sweets, all at 50% off. It was hard to tell if they were closing down or had just popped up in an empty storefront for Christmas.

Better was a pie shop, selling hot pies. I went there last, bought pie & chips for dinner. It was excellent.

Pudding came from The Cheesecake Shop. I think this is a New Zealand brand, with about three shops in the UK, one of which is why nobody in Nottingham ever makes cheesecake. The tropical fruit cheesecake was just as good as in Nottingham.

There was also a general store there, selling sprite (now adulterated with vodka) and the excellent New Zealand chocolate. I now have rum & raisin and caramel chocolate, enough to get me to America. It’s not top-end chocolate but it’s way above its price point. I also picked up a box of matches there for the lady next door. They didn’t sell single boxes, so I gave her all 12, which appears to have surprised her.

Back at the lodge I found more people had arrived, including a noisy chap. He went into his lodge and started playing heavy beat music far too loudly. Even in my cabin with the door closed I could hear it thudding, four cabins and 40 yards away. I let it slide for a while, as the ride-on lawnmower had been going since I arrived and was likely to stop soon, and that might lead to reduced music noise.

Incidentally, should I be concerned that an ant just strolled out from under my pillow?

The music didn’t stop when the lawnmower did. I knocked on his door, had no answer. As I walked away he appeared from the shower so I mentioned how unfortunately thin the cabin walls are, and that I could hear his music in my cabin with the door shut. He apologised, smiled, went inside.

The music is now quieter. I can still hear that it’s playing but it’s no longer likely to cause a headache; I can sleep through this volume level. It’s possible he just turned it up so he could hear it while he had a shower.

Another ant strolls across the bed covers.

I only managed 4km walked today, and the drive was shorter than normal too.

This was an intended rest day, laundry, quiet night.

Later, around 7pm, the Sprite finished, a useful barrier to drinking any more vodka, assuring sobriety by morning, I sat outside on the mini veranda, reading my book, listening to the birds singing their goodbyes to the day’s departing sun. I had my camera beside me but it was too early for possum.

It wasn’t too late for small girls, a 6-7 year old in a dress and leggings skipping past my cabin, soon caught up by one even younger, maybe around 4, her red dress held in place by fairy wings on her back. They saw me, stopped in consternation, peered around the trees between my cabin and the track.

“Hello,” said one of them, I’m not sure which.
“Hello,” followed the other, joining in. I said nothing.
The youngest waved hesitantly to me, and, as they started skipping off again, I waved back.

They returned a minute later, a different route, across the grass, the fairy wings mirrored by outspread arms, skirts flying backwards as they ran.

Another minute and they reappeared, two mother aged women with them. “Hello again,” from one of the girls, and another wave.

I waved back, got a “Hello” and a smile from one of the mothers.

That journey lasted just a minute too, although this time a more sedate return across the grass.

A third trip, just the girls, no “hello” this time, just a quick wave to acknowledge that I was still sat there, the implication I was becoming part of the furniture, needing no more acknowledgement than the trees between us. A third return, this one along the track, attention focussed on the destination.

Silence returned, then at 8pm a barrage of ‘hello’ from across the field, a male voice, no replies perhaps explaining his repeated refrain. Distant conversation, an Asian accent, matching the man that built the cabins, seemed to be the owner of the properties. I guessed it was his family, a proper house in that direction a more appropriate home than the small cabins in which the guests stayed.

A young couple walked past, waved hello. His shorts were just below the knee, her dress just above it. She walked back, reappeared at the wheel of a Mercedes, parked it on the grass outside my cabin. A young man, likely family of the owner, spoke with her as she got out and she got back in, reversed back off the grass and drove further down the track, the sounds of her parking just after she left sight.

The sun was low by now, shadows larger than the things making them. The birds still sang, their backdrop the sound of wind in the trees. Hamilton is a large city spread over a wide area but it’s low density throughout, most houses just bungalows, large gardens ubiquitous, and we were right on the edge, practically countryside. In a few months this wouldn’t be so idyllic, the new cabins less of an impact than the new road, a bypass nearing completion a few hundred metres away.

Another car arrived, this one from the wrong direction, pulled across the grass and stopped in sight, an elderly man getting out and being greeted by a woman of comparable age from the direction of one of the cabins. The proprietor appeared, towels in hand, clearly welcoming them to the sight. Prices are low, the online pictures of the venue attractive, full occupancy easily reached.

As he left them the proprieter turned to me, still wearing shorts but now also a woolly hat, asked me, “No problem? Any problem?” I raised a thumb, got a wave and a “Thank you” as he strode off.

In the distance the clouds lit up from below., the trees no longer casting shadows. The new arrivals unloaded their car, and I could hear their neighbour’s music, gentle at this distance.

It didn’t feel dark, although inside my cabin it clearly was, and a quick test with my camera showed it automatically selecting ISO6400, the highest it would normally go. If possums did arrive any photographs would be blurred and grainy. It seemed unlikely we’d get any, too many people around, the chicken and its chicks long disappeared, the birds staying high in the trees.

A Chinese woman appeared, carrying a basket, likely the wife of the owner. The noisy man walked across, engaged her in conversation, then chatted to the new arrivals as they continued unloading their car. They’d taken so long the clouds had gone dark again.

Just before 9pm a small mammal crossed the grass in the distance. It looked like a cat to me but disappeared under a car before I could put on my glasses. Trying to see where it had gone I almost missed a smaller shape bounding after it. Six minutes later a tiny black and white face poked around the corner of my verandah, a little kitten looking astonished that I was sat there looking back. It ran quickly past, disappearing below. A minute later a slim adult tabby poked its head around the same corner, looked just as astonished, but ran in a different direction. I wondered if they’d come back and play if I got some paracord.

There must have been more than those two, I saw three shapes running across the grass a few minutes later. It may have been them both and a third, but it was already too dark to tell colours.

The black kitten reappears, sprinting down the track, tail high. On its return it was more cautious, stopping behind each of the trees, a small shadow poking out to check that I hadn’t moved before progressing to the next tree. Ten minutes later another shadow stood by the next cabin, unmoving, almost certainly a cat watching me. I didn’t stay still but also didn’t move towards it, eventually it decided I was harmless and walked past.

The lady in the next cabin came back from her nocturnal wander, told me she was sure she’d seen a possum going past, so I mentioned the two cats I’d seen. She seemed disappointed, returned to her cabin. I wondered if she’d ever seen possums, or if it had always just been cats.

While wondering this another figure appeared, too small to be the tabby but possibly the kitten, albeit coming from a different direction. It ran behind the trees again then was followed by a second that stopped on the track to look at me. I decided I needed a torch.

I stood up as it came through the trees, turned on the cabin’s outside light, found a possum stopped mid-stride looking at me. It came forward some more but turned and ran as I picked up my camera, fleeing up a tree.

The lady came back out of her cabin, looked up the tree, went, “Here pussy” at it. I gave up, switched off my light, went to bed.