New Zeland

New Zealand

November 7-13

From the moment we stepped off the airplane in Auckland we loved New Zealand. Although we quickly discovered that the weather was not what we had anticipated (we thought that it would be hot summer weather and it was cold, windy and rainy) we still had high hopes for what our adventure in this beautiful country would bring. After picking up our "home" for the time we were in NZ (our camper van---also known as the "Rasta Rocket" to us) we headed to do some grocery shopping. While in Tahiti (where the weather was gorgeous and HOT Mike decided that he did not need to carry the extra "weight" of his jeans and he decided (against Monica's advise) to give them to our friends since he saw no "need" for jeans. Once Mike stepped outside in New Zealand he immediately regretted the giving away of the pants. We headed to pick Mike up some new jeans at a local equivalent to K-Mart. After our errands in town we headed to Raglan, an adorable little surf town. As it was dark and we had no idea where we were going to camp for the night and we had a bit of a challenge to find to stay. We found the local campground and got lucky since they were supposed to be closed an hour before we arrived. In the morning we went for a beautiful run in the quaint sleepy town. After breakfast we went searching for waves for Mike. He quickly discovered that like home, people rarely go surfing without wetsuits. After much deliberation, we made the purchase of a wetsuit for mike. Now he could surf the cold waves of NZ. After trekking down an dirt road for what seemed like hours we found Mike some waves. After Mikes surf we made our way back to Raglan and searched for a place to camp for the night. Our camping ground from the night before was already closed but we waited out in the paring lot searching our GPS for anything in the close vicinity, but meanwhile someone else had pulled up an rang the "bell" (which we knew nothing about) and someone came to the door and helped us get a site for the night...THANK GOD! I was almost feeling homeless.

The next day we headed to Lake Taupo, where Mike wanted to wakeboard, but we had no success in that department. We did find a local internet cafe which helped us to discover that the mountains behind Lake Taupo still had snow and one resort was still open for one more week due to their large snow base this winter. So we made our way to the mountain and camped for the night in a "free" site really close to the slopes.

Snowboarding in NZ was spectacular! The views were overwhelming! We had a blast getting some snowboarding in when we though we would be getting summer weather! I took some photos as Mike hit some rails and jumps. After we had no more energy to snowboard we headed back down the mountain and back to our faithful internet cafe to try one last time to wakeboard while in NZ...still nothing. Headed north for hours and camped on the side of the road.

For the next couple days we drove around the Northern area of NZ saw some amazing sites and landscaped, but no more waves for mike...

Our flight was scheduled for 6 AM so we decided to save money and sleep in the airport, but soon were hit with the reality that our flight was actually at 10 AM, so we decided that a hotel would be much more pleasant-there we got the internet and began to plan our next adventures for Australia.....