Writing Test: Trip to Tairua

Anniversary Weekend, my family didn’t really celebrate it, maybe one year we might have gone to the park but really, it was just another weekend in January. This year, we wanted to actually do something because my Mum had the weekend off work and it was the last weekend we had of holidays. Initially, we had planned to climb up Rangitoto Island, that was until my Mum got a message from our friends who live in a small town called Tairua.

My Mum and Dad had known these people for nearly 20 years. They used to live in Samoa together when my older sister and brother were born. My oldest brother was best friends with their oldest girl when they were babies but since then, they moved to a place called Brunei which is in another country and we only saw them briefly about five years ago.

So everyone agreed that we should go down and spend the weekend with our friends. (Even though we couldn’t really remember anything about them) We packed the car and headed down on Friday around about 3.30pm. In our eight seater car, I was in the middle seat in the middle row. I had pillows around my head, baskets of food in between my legs and just about everything else on my lap, I was SQUISHED!! It was like that for the whole two and a half hours that it took us to get from Auckland to Tairua.

As we entered into the small town, we saw a sign that said, “Welcome to Tairua!” as we drove past the school that one of our friends worked at. My stomach had so many butterflies flying around because I was so excited!! I had never been to Tairua but by the look of all the beaches, it looked FANTASTIC! We drew closer to their house and I saw the smoke rising from the burning hot barbecue that was cooking our yummy dinner.

We were welcomed by their whole family and to be honest, I didn’t recognize any of them! It had been so long and I couldn’t remember any of them and they couldn’t remember any of us either. At first it was a bit awkward because it felt like we were about to stay in some stranger’s house for two nights, but by dinner time, we were all talking like best friends. It was like some sort of click that we had because my two sisters agreed that we could tell our new/old friends anything and they would straight away know exactly what we were talking about.

That night after dinner, we decided to go and check out one of the beaches and leave the Mums and the youngest ones at home. The beach was very very long, it had a five entries and each were about 10 minute drive away from each other. We went to the first entry which was the right side of the beach and saw how beautiful the beach was. It had perfect waves, not too big and not too small and the sand was like flour.

After a bit of searching, I noticed that by the large cliff to the right of us, there were stairs. I asked their Dad, “Where do those stairs go to?” He replied with a smile, “It goes up the hill, do you want to go?” I nodded my head so we all head off up the stairs. At first, it was a nice little walk but it soon turned into, “Where do these stairs end!?” By the time we got to the top, it was getting dark but their Dad Chris said, “Let’s go this way because it is easier that way to get back to the car.” So off we went walking along this road that went around a mountain.

By the time we got to the car, it was pitch black and were using the very few street lights to navigate. But our night didn’t end there, we got home and played a game called Head’s Up! for another hour! We didn’t get to sleep till midnight and the parents stayed up till I don’t know when talking and talking and talking. I was so tired I drifted off to sleep in my sleeping bag nicely.

On Saturday, we went to a really cool place called Frog Rock. It was a little river which had a huge rock that people could jump off. We went there after the Saturday market and stayed there for 2 hours before heading to one of the beaches. The beach that we went to was called, “Sailors Grave” and it has enormous waves that could tip even my 6.2ft brother over. It was really fun but by the end, my hair was everywhere from all the waves pushing me over. That night, we had fun cricket game which was won by the boys and we played another round of Head’s Up but we did get to sleep before midnight.

Sunday was our last day at Tairua and we spent the morning jumping off the Tairua bridge. The water was really cold and my cut my foot on oyster shells while I was trying to swim back to shore. We had a nice lunch with barbecue leftovers and I discovered something. My Mum and Raewyn (Their Mum) actually went to school together and were best friends! So my mum and their mum have known each other for a lot longer than I thought.

After lunch, it was time to say goodbye to our new/old friends. It was really sad and I really wished that we could have stayed longer. I loved hanging out with them and checking out all the different beaches. I couldn’t believe how many swimming sites than they knew of in such a small town. I really enjoyed my time in Tairua and I can’t wait for the next time we go down.

The End