I made breakfast and laid on the couch for a bit holding Sophie the cat. She hardly lets me hold her for very long but since she was really sleepy she didn't seem to mind. She was being super sweet and cuddly. I finally got up and got moving. I continued organizing my things and stuffed them in my pack. I was amazed I got everything into it but I've had a lot of practice. I FaceTimed my brother for a little bit before heading out the door.
It was actually a really warm day out and lugging around my massive pack and two smaller packs was not a fun task. It was about 1.2 miles to the bus stop and the last little bit of it was uphill. I was sweating in the heat by the time I reached the top. I was early for the bus so I left my bags at the information center and ran a quick errand. At the bus shelter I talked to a nice woman who just got there with her kids and was visiting her sister on Waihi. My bus was late and I was a little bit worried but it eventually came. The bus ride was alright.
I arrived in Manukau at their big shopping center and caught another bus right from there. It was intended to take me to a street near my hostel I would be staying at for the night, but the bus driving just kept going. He finally stopped and I knew I was a good distance away from where I needed to be. I was not looking forward to walking all that way with my three bags and it was HOT out. I hauled my stuff off the bus and set it next to the sidewalk so I could get my GPS out and figure out where I needed to start walking to. Before I could hardly pull my phone out, two young boys came up to me and asked if I needed help, I said oh no I'm ok I'm just trying to find out where I need to go, and they were like well do you need help with your stuff and I didn't really decline or say yes but said okay if you want to.
The one boy picked up my big backpack and put it over his shoulders. He was like wow this thing really is heavy. I was kind of weary of them at first and jokingly said, you're not going to run off with it right, my whole life is kind of in that bag. He said that there was no way he could, that it was far too heavy. I was so grateful that I wasn't going to have to carry it and that a young, willing boy was instead. Him and I talked the whole way to the hostel, which I think must have been a mile away in the bleeding hot sun. His friend was really quiet, though I found out it was his cousin. The talkative one said, wow, whenever I see someone with a big pack walking around, I'll realize how hard work it is. Both boys had some facial hair so I guessed that they were in their early twenties. It turns out that they were only 15 and 14 years old. I couldn't believe the sincere generosity and complete selflessness of these young, Maori boys. It was truly an amazing experience that honestly, put me in a really good mindset.
I checked into the hostel, which was actually a part of a larger, nicer hotel. The hostel part was pretty rundown and smelly. I sat at my bunk and struck up conversation with a German girl who was really nice and fun to talk to. Her name was Nina and we ended up exchanging numbers. We were also talking to a German guy in the room too who was working nearby and had been living at the hostel for a few weeks. He recognized the Detroit Red Wings sticker on my water bottle and said that it was his favorite hockey team too, which was pretty cool. He explained how he became a professional handball player at the age of 17 in Germany, apparently it's quite a big sport there.
I headed off in the sun to the nearest Pak N Save for food. I ended up just going to Subway for dinner and ordered a lamb sub. I went to the store also but just for snacks. I made it back to the hostel, showered, and talked to the Germans a bit more before settling into the uncomfortable bunk.
