A Weekend Sans Internet

Friday 25 March

We arrived in Mahanga (which is near Mahia) at lunchtime after a drive of several hours and a coffee stop at Wairoa.  The first thing I realised was that neither Telecom nor my Vodafone had a signal.  My only internet link is via my Telecom dongle so I realised that I was incommunicado until we returned to the big wide world on Monday.  Three days or 72 hours without access to my mobile/cell phones, emails, Blogworld, Facebook, Google, Wikipedia and all the other things I take so for granted!  Will I survive?  Well if you are reading this the answer is obviously in the affirmative. 

I am actually sitting in bed at 11pm on Friday writing this and wondering when I was last out of communication for three days.  I think that the answer may be many many years ago.  Even when I was in the outback of Australia in 1998 I think that I managed cellphone coverage often enough never to miss more than a day or so in what were then usually daily phone calls to my parents.

I had my first cellphone over 20 years ago when they were actually the size of a brick with a battery and main unit separate from the speaking part which was, like the ordinary telephones of the time, attached by a cord to the main unit.  I’ve never been without a cellphone since then and in fact although the numbers have been extended by the addition of suffixes as the total available numbers became inadequate I still have the same mobile/cellphone number as I had all those years ago.

At Mahanga: out of the front door and onto the beach - before the rain!

This beach is getting crowded - who's the chap coming to invade our space?

Saturday 26 March

We all got up late around 8am this morning.  It turned out to be a pretty miserable day.  It didn’t  start raining properly until lunchtime but once it started it persisted for the rest of the day:  not hard constant rain but the sort of constantly intermittent (if you’ll look past the grammatical non sequitur to the reality) sort of rain that drenches you before you’ve noticed it.  So apart from a drive to the village for the newspaper and a walk on the beach before the rain set in we didn’t do much outside today.  We spent the afternoon and evening doing crosswords, reading and playing games.  I’m not a great lover of games but I did rather enjoy Blokus and Monopoly Deal. 

Reggie Perrin - Don't do it!

I had hoped to get a really symphony in green but the sun never shone on the hillside of native bush.

Sunday 27 March

Got up very late this morning (about 0745) after a rather broken night with fairly torrential rain.  We had a very relaxed morning and then drove over to Mahia and dropped Colleen off to visit friends whilst Sandra took Jayne and I exploring the peninsula.

Mahia Beach.  There was a storm recently and this was the result.

Home and lunch was followed by an afternoon walking on the beach and exploring the area.  Another day of miserable weather although the rain stopped mid-morning.

Spray obscuring the 7 ks of beach between where I'm standing and the Mahia Peninsula

On a sunny day this looks like the Bahamas - I've seen the photos 'cos this land's for sale!

This evening we played more Blokus and Monopoly Deal.  By this time even Jayne had decided the latter was a Good Game and had become hooked.

So now at midnight (about 2 or 3 hours past everyone else’s usual bedtime we have all finished chatting and putting the world to rights and have retired to bed.  I don’t actually feel tired and am typing this listening to piano music on my iPod.