Thursday, January 3, 2013

Beautiful Beaches and Hot Showers


We left Paihaia! Finally. I loved everything God did there and I know He had us there for a purpose, but I don’t think it’s in God’s plan for me very often or very soon to minister to drunk teenagers.
We had a day in between ministries to kill – we weren’t expected in Kaitaia until Thursday, so we roadtripped across the North Island to find a beach to camp on. I love roadtripping, and especially here in New Zealand. It’s so beautiful – interstates don’t exist, so it’s winding highways and no traffic. The landscape is always incredible, whether it be rolling green hills, rocky mountains, or oceanside drives – it’s always breathtaking. If you ever come to New Zealand, the best thing to do is roadtrip across.

We didn’t really know where we were going to stay, so we just drove around to random beaches, where most the campgrounds were already full because it’s summer holidays right now, until we found this one little community in the middle of nowhere. It was beautiful – a private beach, so all-residential and there were no tourists. Which meant quiet. And you have no idea how much we wanted quiet after being surrounded by loud drunken teenagers for a week. So – we rented an apartment for super cheap – and get this: IT HAD CARPET.

AND A SHOWER.

A HOT SHOWER.

AND A KITCHEN.

AND BEDS.

YOU KNOW HOW LONG IT’S BEEN SINCE I’VE SEEN A BED???

And it was a 30-second walk to the beach.

NBD.

The beach was beautiful and clean.

I would have loved it soooo much as a child – shells painted the shore and they were so big and beautiful. The shelf was really shallow – you could walk for more than 200 feet from the shore and still keep your shoulders above water. There were beautiful rock shores as well and I could have died and gone to heaven.

The next day, we went to Kaitaia.

But I’ll tell you about that later.

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