In the carport, Leen and Dave hit each other with socks.

Driving

Day 6 was also a leisurely day, although slightly less so. We drove north, to a number of abandoned northern beaches. Funny thing about beach crowds. Brunnen-G considers four or five other people on a huge half kilometer-long stretch of beach to be "crowded." She doesn't like "all the people" getting in the way. New Hampshire's seacoast, which is only a few miles long and located just north of Boston, is, during the summer, infested with so many people it is difficult to find bare patches of sand. I'm not so accustomed to crowded beaches that I like them -- it's just not the same kind of experience as having a beach that extends as far as the eye can see all to oneself -- but it was even odder to hear Brunnen-G complain that 4-5 people "crowd" a beach as it was to say that she has a mosquito problem at her home. Sure, with some hunting one could find three or four mosquitos in her house in the evening, especially if the windows were left open at dusk, but to anyone who has been camping on the shores of Maine lakes, well, we just found it difficult to take her seriously.

So we drove up to some northern abandoned beaches, reaching Pakiri, which was as far north as we got. On the way, wound through thick forests and hills on 1.5 lane roads. We encountered a grater vehicle going the other way. It had a construction sign on it. It indicated that there would be freshly grated roads for the "Next 4 km." If there's anything more surreal than a "Next 4 km" sign on a moving vehicle, it would be that after about 4 km, the freshly grated road conditions did indeed cease.

Lunch

We stopped at a convenience store for lunch and picked up some luncheon pies. This is a quick food staple of New Zealand convenience stores. They're shaped like our serving-sized TableTalk fruit pies but a little bigger -- pie shaped, but only about five inches in diameter -- except that they contain more substantial food. Some of the flavors were beef and cheese; beef, bacon, and cheese; egg and bacon; chicken and cheese; steak and cheese; and more along those lines. They were stored hot, and you'd just pull one out, pay for it, and eat it. No silverware required; they were JUST cohesive enough that if you held onto it, the plastic wrapping still around one end, and didn't tip it so the insides would ooze out, you could eat it without silverware. We have serving-sized chicken pot pies here that you can get in the frozen food section of our grocery stores, but those wouldn't hang together quite well enough to eat by hand. At any rate, practically every convenience store had them, but none of them get them from the same place, so sometimes they're good, and sometimes they aren't. These were pretty good.

Horse Trek

On the way to a horse trek place, we passed a cow in the road. Livestock in the road is funny no matter where you're from, I think. Neither the city nor the country is alien to me, but I doubt I'll ever stop being amused when I encounter a cow, lacking any conception that it is out of place, standing in the middle of the road.

The horse trek place turned out not to be such a great one. They weren't as professionally operated as the one in Rotorua. The paper they had us fill out asked us to say whether we had ridden less than 20 times, about 20 times, or more than 20 times. Our answers determined what horses we would be given to ride. In the United States, if you're a novice rider, you get a horse that's, for all practical purposes, dead. You can do anything you want to them, give them rein, kick them in the rear, whatever, and they will plod harmlessly along the trail. If you're an expert rider, you get given a horse that you need to ride properly, on the reins -- a horse that has enough energy to run if you want it to.

That wasn't how it worked there. Dave and I, horse idiots, got given horses we had to ride on the reins or they'd take off, which, while scary, was not more than we could handle, because we simply made a point not to give them rein. Darleen and Brunnen-G, being expert riders, were given untrained horses.

Horse selection aside, the ride itself was fun -- we waded through some water, requiring us to raise our feet to avoid getting wet, then half walked/half trotted along the beach. On the way back, we went along some pleasant sandy trails, bordered by grasses and brush, that provided good views of the ocean and the surrounding hills.

In between, however, there was the small matter of scaling a cliff.

When we turned off the beach, there was a sandy embankment, marking the division between the sandy beach and the brushy traily area. Our guide told us we would need to let our horses run, as they'd get up the enbankment easier that way. Miraculously, Dave made it up without falling off. As did I. I'm glad we did that, because now I can say I've been on a running horse, but I'm glad it wasn't for any longer, because I'm pretty certain I'd have fallen off eventually. It doesn't LOOK like it should be that hard to stay on a horse, but it is. Part of it, I suppose, was that we were in English saddles, not Western, which tend to hold you in a lot better.

But Leen's horse, being improperly trained and all, FLIPPED when it was given rein and allowed to run. It bolted, out of control, and Leen thought she was going to flip over backward. She couldn't ride the horse off the reins, but she couldn't ride it on the reins either, or it would flip its head, yank at the reins, and throw a tantrum. Obviously it had spent a lot of time winning wars of will with its riders, so it was going to protest against anything Leen did until it got its way. Leen said she would have loved to have had a couple weeks to get that horse under control and put some actual training into it. But, alas.

Just above the embankment, our guide told us we could go for a run if we wanted. Leen wasn't about to, so Brunnen-G figured she'd try. Instead of letting her go first, the guide took Leen, Dave, and I down the trail at a walk first, then called back when it was ok for Brunnen-G to start running. We waited. And waited.

Apparently as soon as we got out of sight, Brunnen-G's horse freaked, and when it was permitted to run, ousted her from the saddle. She was unhurt, but she lost her glasses and couldn't find them again even after a good deal of searching. I wanted to help, but I couldn't really do anything about my horse (Chester). The guide helped look, and when the trail ride was over, she went back to look some more, but they never turned up.

But the worst was when we got back, and the owner of the place asked Darleen how the ride was. Darleen wasn't going to say anything, but, when asked, she was honest. The horse was too uncontrolled for her to be comfortable on it. The owner was reasonable, but there was another old woman there that, for whatever reason, seemed to take personal offense. "If you say you're an expert, you're going to be given an expert horse. If you were an expert rider, you shouldn't have had a problem." Never mind that the form defines for you what is "expert" (more than 20 rides) rather than permitting one to provide one's own self-assessment about what one is comfortable with. Never mind that an expert in the show ring does not necessarily mean "able to handle a wild and improperly trained horse."

So we weren't impressed with that riding place, and Brunnen-G says she isn't going back there again. But, as with everything, we made the most of it, and I certainly appreciated the beautiful scenery. And, since we did so much trotting (through no direction of my own, I assure you -- the horse pretty much went where, and how fast, it wanted to), I took the opportunity to try to post. So it was the first time I had ever done that, too.

Gum Tree

We passed some gum trees, but there were no Kookaburras in them.

Presidential Towns

While looking at a map of New Zealand, I noticed there is a town in the South Island called "Clinton," and, east of it, another called "Gore." In the middle, Brunnen-G told us, there was a sign saying that Clinton was down the road one way and Gore was down the road the other way. This sign was apparently sent to Bill Clinton, and a new one was put up in its place.

Ice Cream

Of COURSE we stopped for ice cream. We ate it on the banks of a little river in Warksworth. There were mallards all about, and we found one that was injured. It was sitting in the grass, not moving. When we got near it, it sort of scrabbled to push itself away, and that's when we realized it was hurt. So we chucked it our ice cream cones when we were done, chased the other ducks away, and gave it a meal.

Beaches

Of COURSE we stopped at beaches. In that section of New Zealand, the land gets very thin. It is FREAKY to drive down a winding mountain road, spot a glimpse of the ocean, then continue a little further around a corner or two, and then see the ocean again -- on the OTHER SIDE.

Tawharanui beach was one of my favorites, because it had lots of stuff to climb. Climbing things is very cool. But before we got down to the actual beach, I stopped to spread my arms and fall back into a steepish bank of thick, tall grass. Brunnen-G thought that looked fun, so she ran up and did that too. I tried to make grass angels, by sliding my arms and legs back and forth, but it didn't work out so well.

Like most of the beaches in New Zealand, the vast expanse of sand was broken only by a couple humongous rock ledges, positioned half in the water and half out. There were tiny caves all over, which were fun to explore, and there was a big platform on top with grasses and trees. Getting up to it required climbing due up on the rock, but there were enough irregularities in the side to allow one to scramble up. Beyond, on the ocean side, a lower platform of very irregularly shaped rock provided homes for crabs, starfish, thousands of mussels, and other sea life.

It got hot while we were there, but I was wearing shorts underneath by jeans, so I shed the jeans and spend the rest of the time, until we got back to the car, indulging my penchant for thwarting tradition and etiquette in my service of practicality by tying my jeans around my waist.

Fortunately this was not a "crowded" beach, so there wasn't anybody around that would see me and make Leen embarrassed.

RinkChat

We got on RinkChat, but the only two people there were Ellmyruh and saintjane, and saintjane left right then. So Ellmyruh got to talk to us for a few minutes. She was confused, because four of us were talking as one person.

Tater Fat Casserole

New Zealand hamburg (or "mince," as they call it) is not labeled with percentages that indicate the fat content. Tater Tot Casserole is best made with 90% or 95% fat free hamburg. Otherwise, since the hamburg is not pre-cooked, the fat oozes out into the sauce. So when we went grocery shopping the day before, we bought the most expensive, high quality mince we could find.

Next problem. You can't get tater tots in New Zealand. We went with "pom poms," which were advertised as little balls of mashed potato with that generic brown outer coating that is found on so many frozen foods.

There was no brand of cream of mushroom soup that we recognized, so we bought a local brand. And the cheese was sold in metric units, so we estimated there, too.

The end result, alas, was less than spectacular. The mince turned out to be quite fatty after all, and it leaked fat juice everywhere. The pom poms weren't like tater tots at all: they were, just as advertised, balls of mashed potato. I didn't mind that part so much -- Leen and Dave did -- but the fatty sauce was not so pleasant.

Still, it was good enough to eat, I guess, and we polished it off pretty efficiently.

Dishwasher

After dinner, we filled the dishwasher, which was the highlight of the trip, as I'm sure you can imagine.

Earlier in the day, I drank some of that delicious apple-orange-mango juice out of a big fat wine-type glass, because the conventional glasses were all dirty at the time. As we were filling the dishwasher, Dave said, "All right. Who drank out of the big glass?" mocking my penchant for thwarting tradition and etiquette in my service of practicality.

"Sam! ..."

"Probably Sam!"

"...drank orange juice out of it..."

"Actually," Brunnen-G said, "drinking it out of that wasn't a bad idea. Not as good as the skulls of your enemies, but not bad."

By this we knew that Brunnen-G was, indeed, the same person in person that she is online.

"Can this go in the dishwasher?" Leen asked, holding up something.

"Everything can go in the dishwasher," Brunnen-G replied. "If it melts, then we'll throw it away and not buy anymore of those again."

By this we reaffirmed that Brunnen-G was, indeed, very very cool.

Mini-Golf

We played mini-golf in the dark and a drizzle. Puck won, and Dave was second by a single stroke. Puck got three holes in one (the only three in his life, he said), and I got two.

Birds

4 new, 22 total: Australian Magpie, Myna, Pukeko, Spur-Winged Plover, Australasian Harrier, Paradise Shelduck, Feral Goose, Peacock (*), European Starling, Red-Billed Gull, White-Faced Heron, Welcome Swallow, Black-Backed Gull, House Sparrow, Caspian Tern (*), Black-Billed Gull, Variable Oyster Catcher, Goldfinch, Mallard, Pied Stilt (*), Fan Tail, Chukor (*).

Leen had seen peacocks before, of course, but this was the first time she had seen one in the wild. At first she didn't believe it was wild, but Brunnen-G assured her it was.