There is a Dutch girl called Sabine sharing my room who also wants to walk up to the Pinnacles in the Kauaeranga Valley today. So we are going together. The lady from the hostel gives us a lift to the start point of the walk, about a 40 minute drive from where we are staying.
We walked for 3 hours up lots of steps, through a dry river bed and lots of rocks to reach the Pinnacles hut where it is possible to spend the night. It sleeps 80. From here it's another 50 minutes to the top. More clambering over rocks and pulling yourself up on metal bars. For 1 split second I did wonder why I was doing this then it started to give me a buzz.
We reached the top and celebrated with a short rest and chocolate. Then back down to the hut for a quick lunch. Back to the bottom. An 8 hour round trip which I thought was quite hard.
I suggested to Sabine that we went out tonight for a drink to celebrate.
So later Sabine, a French guy, and a Chinese girl who had been brought up in NZ and I went for a drink. We had trouble finding somewhere to go, it's Saturday night but it's not exactly a hive of activity! We eventually find a sleazy looking sports bar. Full of slot machines, big TV screens and old men. The barman asked for ID but then couldn't read the DOB. He wouldn't serve us a bottle of wine only 4 glasses. We went back to the hostel and shared another bottle of wine there.