Slept really well because I'd had a few pints last night.

Checked out. Didn't rush around because of the weather. It was that really light rain that gets you soaking wet without you properly realising. We went for breakfast and ended up watching Yes Man in the communal tv room which somebody had just put on. Busy in there as well with the weather like it was. That's a really funny film - watch it asap if you haven't already. One of Jim Carey's best, I think.

At about 11.45am we managed to get checked in at YHA for our last night in Paihia. Nice clean little room with two bunks and an en-suite. No other people were in our room at that point so we got a bunk to ourselves. I think the bunks are made for hobbits though - doubt my ankles will be on the bed tonight. We had a look in the communal kitchen - proper nice. It was all really clean and they have all the utensils for cooking, plenty of pots and pans, and they even had gas cookers! That's the first time we've had a gas cooker, everywhere else is electric. And electric is a pain in the backside to keep the temperature right. But the best things....they provide lots of different cooking spices, salt, pepper and sugar! Oh and they have tea towels. Never thought I'd be so excited about tea towels. It's nice knowing there's a decent kitchen to cook in though when you've got to make your own food all the time. I hate going into these kitchens and some a-hole has left a pan in the sink with loads of noodles or pasta burnt and stuck all on the inside. And it's the first hostel to have tea towels that haven't been sat there for a week and to provide a big pile of clean ones too!

We didn't do anything fantastic today due to the weather. Went for a walk up to look around the town centre. Had a coffee and said good-bye to Lisa as she leaves today to start her tour south. We might catch up with her on the way though.
Then we walked to countdown to buy some bits for tea and lunch tomorrow.

The weather didn't change at all. Thought it might brighten up by the afternoon, but no. So, we put a wash on, then sat in the communal TV room and stuck on a video. Yeah, a video. Yeah, one of those big old chunky cassettes! We watched Blow starring Jonny Depp. Really good film actually. The video was a bit poor though and we had dodgy colour and lots of white fuzzy lines through the bottom all the way through.

It was about 7pm before we knew it so we got cracking with making our tea. I was trying to think of making something to take advantage of the freebie spices, so we made chilli. Actually, the tin of tomatoes and the tin of kidney beans were already Mexican spiced, but we still added a bit more chilli powder anyway.

Got talking to this couple whilst making our tea and then when we were about to sit on the other table to eat, they said "oh sit on this table...well, unless you don't want to sit with us.."
So we did. Bloody hell, wish we didn't, they didn't stop talking. They were in their early 30's and spent more time moaning about being around other people. They don't like drinking. So they don't like going to bars etc. They didn't miss Christmas at home even though they did jack-all exciting all day. They don't miss their family...tell you what, I bet nobody misses them either.
I couldn't eat my flipping tea properly because every time I took a mouthful of chilli he'd be asking me something. We both kept leaving the table (one at a time) at any opportunity, trying to make it obvious that we had better things to do. They weren't completely miserable people, but they weren't far off.

Then we got to our room to get packed up and sorted for morning and the two other people in our room came back and got into bed - it was only 10pm! There's quite a few older people in this place too - in there 60's. There's a lot of single travellers and a lot of people who just seem boring...

We can't win - hostels are either too wild or too boring. There's no medium. We'd rather be with the wild crowd though, so think we might have to avoid the YHAs! Once we start taking the Stray bus south, we'll be sticking with people on our bus and just going to the same hostels as them anyway. The good thing about YHAs seems to be that they're clean and have good facilities, plus you're allowed your own alcohol, yet the party hostels don't allow own alcohol. That's because they have their own bar and want everyone drinking in there. We'll see anyway.

I really hope nobody snores tonight.