Hick town- would have been nice forty years ago.

House 1
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After Paihia we decided to head to a place called Dargaville, this was a little off the beaten track but looked really nice from the brochures in all the i-sites. The scenery on the way there was fantastic, when we arrived we spent about half an hour driving round looking for the centre of town as when we found the centre of town we didn't believe that could be it! Eventually we found the i-site and headed to a local motor camp, when we arrived at the motor camp it all looked relatively ok and we booked in for the night as the facilities seemed good and clean. When we were making some dinner in the kitchen a friendly old chap advised us to "keep an eye on your stuff theres some bad uns round here" which worried us a little as everything we own on our travels is in our car and tent with no alarms etc. The camp site seemed to be mainly occupied by people living there [both in work and looking for work] and there were some really dodgy people hanging around the outside tv lounge [looked like they had just come off The Jeremy Kyle Show wearing sunglasses at night!]. Did meet a really friendly old Maori bloke who described us as the posh speaking pommy people, he seemed really impressed with himself that he had managed an entire conversation with us[??] and did a Maori greeting which involved him grabbing me and rubbing his nose against mine- at first this was a bit alarming but Laura reassured me that he wasn't about to kiss me or something. After going to bed somewhat earlier than usual with all our valuables and medication [just in case the car got stolen] in the tent it was decided that some sort of weapons would be a good idea so Anthony armed himself with a wheel brace and a big can of bug spray. The night was one of little sleep [cars wheel spinning in the road along from the camp at 2 am and people screaming at 4 am] and the continuous noise of people milling round and movement around the tent. Needless to say we packed the tent up in the morning and got the hell out of there, enclosed are some pictures [houses that Laura liked] oddly the town was on the news a couple of weeks later as there had been a huge fire in the main street destroying 3-4 large shops, after we were told that "no-one goes to Dargeville anymore its like the wild west".

No-one goes to Dargeville anymore its like the wild west