THAMES - THE LESS SAID ...

We’d stopped at Thames for a couple of hours on the way up to the Coromandel and had pre-booked into a hostel for two nights on the way back, arriving on Sunday night and leaving on Tuesday morning. We’d read up on what there was to do there and it looked quite interesting. How wrong can you get. The hostel was a real dive or “twll o le”. The advertised laundry facilities had broken down "earlier in the week" – early last year more like, and the whole place looked tired and threadbare. The rooms were also a little chilly in the evening but as a matter or principle, I was not going to pay $4 to hire a heater for a couple of hours. The only redeeming feature was that you almost stumbled into their back door straight off the bus. Finding $3 and a cigarette lighter down the back of the sofa which was upholstered with dog-hair gave me a smug feeling for a while. Having said all that, I was fascinated by the kitchen. The utensils were probably at the cutting edge of technology when Mrs Beeton was a girl, but still in remarkable condition and the crockery was a mix of seventies style patterns and colours. We could have been in a time warp.

What had really caught our eye in the guide book was the Thames Gold Mining Museum just out of town where we could take an underground tour then see rock crushing and gold processing as it would have been done yesteryear. We went along to the town tourist site in the evening shortly after arriving to ask about opening times. Very sorry, it was closed on Mondays. Oh. What about the Museum of Mining History then? Sorry, that was open on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays only. Oh. What was there to do then? Well there was an excellent bird hide at the end of a boardwalk when two hours either side of high tide you could observe hundreds of wading seabirds in the Firth of Thames but high tide was very early morning and after dark! Great …

We did find a little cinema that was warm and free of dog-hair where made up two thirds of the audience to watch a classic piece of kiwiana and we paid a couple of visits to the town swimming pool that looked like a space capsule. Nice big cold drops of water dripping from the ceiling plopped steadily on the heads of swimmers below.

As we waited for the bus out of town the following morning, I was browsing the dusty souvenirs at the station when I spotted a little kiwi toy all alone at the back of a shelf. The stitching on his bottom had frayed and his beak was a little wonky but he seemed to have an imploring look in his eyes. I got him for a knockdown price and as I boarded the bus I’m sure I heard a whispered “thank you” and a little chuckle.