Seafood feast in a Hell's Angel's bunker!

After biking all day, I ended up in a little place called Waihi beach... there was only one hostel and some big, busy campgrounds... so I opted for the hostel! I must say I was a little freaked out when I got there... The place looked a little scary! I was so tired that I decided to go check it out anyways. Turned out to be one of the coolest place I've been to so far! There was only one more traveller in the place and all the rest were local people! I met a couple of Maori guys (aboriginals from New Zealand), Franky and Dean, who agreed to take me mussel picking the next day! So we headed off on a little trail off the beach and hiked for about 30 minutes before we got to a beautiful little cove with crystal clear water! The guys decided to jump off the cliff into the water... until we spotted some monstrously big sting rays cruising around exactly were they had been jumping! I had never seen such big sting rays before! Very impressive (and a bit freaky!). Dean picked about 150 mussels right off the rocks and Franky and I went hunting for Kina (a type of sea urchins) and Paua (photo in smugmug... quite discusting looking thing!). So we went back to the bunker and had a huge seafood feast! Couldn't be much fresher than that!! I even tried a Kina... it looked nasty but was very tasty! So that was my first maori cultural experience in New Zealand! Those guys were very interesteing to talk to as they knew a lot about the natural world! I am now heading into Maori country (East Cape of North Island) and I am really looking forward to it!