This weekend Emma, Thea, Amanda, Lydia and I visited Pataua (said as Paa-tu-a), which in Maori could mean “our fortified village”… but who knows, I only looked it up in bits on the online Maori Dictionary. Taua means “our” while a Pa is a Maori Village.
Anywho, we left at 3:30 and arrived when it was pitch black out and we couldn’t see the beach at all. Pretty much Pataua is a small beach house town, a 30 minute drive from Whangarei, the real town (said as Fung-a-ray). Pataua is a remote beach – and we had the entire place to ourselves!
The first night we made Mushroom-Veggie-Burgers, and told ghost stories while the wind and rain slammed into the doors and windows. After coloring and working on a puzzle, we hit the hay to enjoy the morning.
This is what we woke up to see.
I took a long walk and passed maybe 3 people.
This dog went to down digging in the sand. It made me miss Alice.
I am going to put a lot of emphasis on the photo because I really felt like I was on Aotearoa at that moment. Aotearoa means the Land of the Long White Cloud, and if you look above the water you can see a cloud that stretched across the entirety of the land.
Emma and I after we unsuccessfully tried to boogie board and had our butts kicked by the waves.
Throughout the weekend the lot of us worked on coursework, did some reading, etc. It was nice to have a change of scenery.
AND the other girls went and collected Pipi’s (muscle like shell fish) from the water so we had free seafood. If you know me and shellfish…. DELICIOUS!!!!
Overall, Pataua was a good weekend trip!