Temporary Settlements

It's nice to hang out at one or two spots for several days and that's pretty much what I've been doing the last couple of weeks. First four days in the Wellington area and then the last week in Raglan, one of the best surf spots in New Zealand (and the locals will probably argue, the world.) And now I'm back in the Wellington area where I'll stay until after Christmas. Where I'm off to after that, I'm not sure yet.

When I last left you I was in Christchurch and on my way to Wellington. Erin, who I met at Stuart's wedding several years ago, picked me up at the airport along with her fiance's (Andrew) kids Emma, 5, and Michael, 7. We headed back to their place in Wellington, picked up Andrew and were on our way out to the Wairarapa region to spend the night at Andrew's mum's (Patricia) place and to celebrate her 65th birthday. Tricia, or as Andrew likes to call her Fat Cat Pat (he told me why, but I don't recall the origin right now), lives just outside of a small town called Masterton (where I'm at right now) on 2.5 acres with a nice pastoral setting. We had a nice lamb dinner that evening with just the 6 of us and multiple bottles of wine. The rest of the family came over on Sunday, Tricia's birthday. Here are a couple of pics from the plane and Tricia's place.

Wellington from the plane

The family out at Tricia's, from left to right, Alistair, Bella, Suzette, Andrew, Emma, Jan, Erin, Some incredibly handsome dude, and the matriarch, Tricia

The view looking off Tricia's back patio

Erin inverted in a wine glass

Emma and Michael

On Monday I took a little walk around Wellington. It's a nice harbour city that's known for it's windy weather. There was a lot to see, but I only went to the museum, Te Papa, www.tepapa.govt.nz/Tepapa/, and wandered around the downtown area. I did buy a pair of jandels (flip flops), which I needed direly. Unfortunately I would find later that they weren't the best for me. Tuesday, Andrew and I drove around town for a while looking for a dresser for his son. We came up empty handed, but he did take me to the top of Mt. Victoria and gave me a wee driven tour of the city. Here are some pictures from Wellington.

The Te Papa Museum


Lots of cool exhibits inside and I took several pictures but I've only posted a couple here. This is the skeleton of a 20 meter whale. At first I thought it was some sort of dinosaur because you can see finger like digits where the fins are. The jaw bone was freakin' huge

The famous Britten bike. Home made in John Britten's garage it performed awesome. http://www.britten.co.nz/

View from a little park in the city

I was feeding a few pigeons and this one seemed to feel pretty comfortable with me.

The view of the harbour from Mt. Victoria

On Wednesday I did a little work in the backyard where Andrew has some grand plans for a nicely landscaped yard and a deck. He's recently been made redundant (unemployed) so he has some free time on his hands. I thought I'd pitch in a little to help him get started by digging a trench where he plans on setting up a retaining fence. I'm interested to see how much he's gotten done in the week that I've been gone :-) That evening we went up to Justine and her husband's place. I think his name is Shane but everyone kept on referring to him at Pagey, since his last name is Page. Interesting fellow who's taken up Thai boxing and won his weight class in a recent tournament. Sounds pretty brutal. These Kiwis sure know how to barbecue. A couple of nights earlier we had a little BBQ at Erin and Andrews with three different meats and this one was similar but with more meat. Mini brats as an appetizer followed by venison (killed and prepared by Pagey), beef steaks, and chicken skewers. This is definitely a nation of meat eaters. The Page's house is set up high in the hills overlooking the harbor with a very nice view. Here are pics from the BBQ.

The beginnings of great things to come.

The view from Justine and Pagey's front window

The dinner party, Pagey and Justine are there in front next to me.

Andrew and I doing a little porch posing

More posing by the guys (mind you this was after several beers, wines, and a couple of gin and tonics)

One last picture as I was leaving town. The main route between the north and south Islands is on these giant ferries. The crossing takes about 4 hours, unless there's bad weather and then it has taken up to 10 hours.

Thursday I took the overnight bus ride to Hamilton. I would not advise traveling overnight by bus. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't all that great either. The final destination was Auckland around 7 am so we arrived in Hamilton at 5 am. The first bus to Raglan didn't leave until 10 am. Luckily someone was coming to work at the transit center around the time I was dropped off and he was kind enough to let me into the place, so I didn't freeze outside. I did wander around Hamilton a little bit when it woke up and I found an interesting piece of trivia.

I guess Hamilton is the home of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. From what little I saw of the town that's probably it's greatest claim to fame.

Raglan is a really cool place. http://www.raglan.net.nz/ It's a nice little coastal town with some of the best left point breaks in the world. And it's situated really well along the Tasman Sea to receive swell year round. Raglan reminded me a little bit of a larger Bolinas with some higher quality waves. There are basically four surf points within 10 km of town. In order from town are the beach break at Ngranui Beach, Manu Bay, Whale Bay, and Indicators. I stuck to the beach and Manu Bay but that was easily enough for me. I only surfed the beach a couple of times, it's not too much fun having to battle through the break to get outside, so I spent most my time at Manu Bay. I think in 6 days I have 8 good sessions, including one evening where the swell picked up dramatically and I was out in the biggest waves I've experienced. A little synopsis of the surf at Raglan: http://sunflowerlodge.co.nz/summittosurfpage_wiakato.htm. I stayed at a cool back packer lodge called Karioi situated on 110 acres of bushland. It was a bit of a walk to the Manu Bay break ~20 minutes and is how I realized my jandels weren't quite the best for the job. First off, my feet aren't used to having something between the toes so I developed some gnarly cuts and secondly, the soles are sort of cloth or leathery and when their wet their slippery as shit and practically worthless to wear. So my feet got pretty beat up but I'm sure the long soaks in the salt water were good for them. Anywho, here are pictures of Raglan and the surf.

Checking out the surf shop in town I found this little beauty. Maybe this 10 foot version is better, Dan.

Main street of Raglan

The view out of Raglan. The lodge I stayed at was near the base of that mountain.

My first view of the wave at Whale Bay. All the point breaks were very rocky so I stuck to Manu where entry and exit from the water was a little safer. I wasn't too worried about myself, but it would have sucked if I had done serious damage to the board I hired

Indicators

Whale Bay

More Indicators

Indicators and Whale Bay from the road

Manu Bay, where I spent most of my time in the water


Chilling out in the hostel room and putting in a plug for the duck

The view along the walkway outside.

Looking out towards the ocean. The walk down to Manu Bay involved a long gravel hill followed by a walk along the road and another paved hill down to the break. The way down was never too bad, but coming back after a long session could be a little tiring.

I had a flight from Hamilton to Wellington yesterday so I decided to stay in Raglan on Wednesday night to make things easier on me. I stayed at the house of a couple named Margot and Rob who I learned about from this great website called www.couchsurfing.com. Basically, people create profiles and offer up their spare bedrooms or couches for travelers to stay for a night or so. A really cool idea and one I'm definitely going to have to use again. Rob was cool, he's been racing motorcycles for the last 4 years and is taking part in the Formula III national circuit this year. He's got a nice SV650 track bike that sounded quite sweet. He sounds like he's a bit of an adrenaline junky as he used to be a world class hang glider and then took up skydiving seriously enough to jump over 700 times in a year or two and is now racing motorcycles at the age of 46. A friend of Margot and Rob's and her daughter came over and we had a nice home cooked meal. The girls went on a gift wrapping frenzy and I helped out by cutting pieces of scotch tape for them. Always one to lend a hand:-) Unfortunately I only have a couple picture from their place.

The girls and their mad wrapping activities. The one in the back on the right is Margot.

My first couchsurfed bed.

And now I'm back out in Masterton with Andrew's family. If the weather improves there is supposed to be a pretty good sized swell hitting the coast and I hope to go out surfing with Andrew's brother, Alistair. He's sort of hard core though, so I'll have to make sure I'm not getting into something over my head. I guess if you don't hear from me again I'll be washed up on the southern coast of New Zealand somewhere. haha. just kidding. really. just kidding. Four to six meters isn't a very big swell, is it?? hahahahaha (that's supposed to sound sort of maniacal.) Quick little update. I'm talking to Alistair right now and tells me the wave he's thinking about going to check out is the only one that scares him. Lord help me. span>

Have a merry christmas (or whatever) everyone!!

mini update....and more waves

Hey all. I'm currently in Raglan after spending a great four days in Wellington with Erin and Andrew. Unfortunately the internet here is expensive and slow so I'm going to have to wait before uploading more photos. But I will say that I'm having a great time doing my best to surf my brains out here. Awesome left point breaks...and a beach break if you're so inclined. Hopefully the swell stays good until I head back down to Wellington for some more surfing and spending Christmas with Andrew's family near Masterton.

And Wes got my bungy DVD and has posted the videos

http://www.flickr.com/groups/fafo_luke/discuss/72157594419081060/

Enjoy and I'll do my best to give a more detailed update as soon as I can.

-Lukey Luke

Oh man...the waves...the waves...

Yeah, so I'm a bit excited right now. I spent the last couple days in the water and it felt so, so good. The waves were small and not so organized but it didn't really matter. Sunny days, surfable waves...I can't wait to get up to Raglan and spend a week or so there. mmmm....waves...

But I guess I'm getting ahead of myself...again. I last checked in in Dunedin about a week ago. I ended up spending three nights there. Dunedin is a fairly large city as south island standards go. It's home to the University of Otago, http://www.otago.ac.nz/ New Zealand's oldest and, I think, largest university. The student body is about 20,000 which swells the town population to near 100,000 while school is in session. It being summer now, pretty much all the students have left for the holiday so it's a lot quieter than usual. My stay in Dunedin was relatively uneventful, but I did see part of a Cricket match between New Zealand and the local team and on Sunday Dunedin held their annual Santa Claus Parade with a very nice turnout of people. I stayed at a pretty cool hostel called Hogwartz. I nice older building on top of a hill overlooking the town. I should have probably gotten out to the Otago peninsula to check out the penguin and Albatross colonies, but I didn't so I guess I'll have to check them out next time I come through. Here are some pictures from Dunedin.

Cricketeers leaving the field for a break

That was a wicked Googlie!!

It's cool, you can walk completely around the pitch with no impedance. The crowd is welcome to sit right up next to the edge of the playing field.

I took a little walk around Dunedin and found myself in another cemetery. This one had a beautiful location but it was very eery. A lot of the graves were in need of some serious care.

This doesn't look like a good omen. Almost a clean split right down the center of the family

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that grave has collapsed in on itself. It wasn't the only one.

Further along on my walk I found another Botanical Garden. This one wasn't as nice as the Christchurch garden but it wasn't too shabby and it did have an aviary which was pretty cool.

Dunedin is home to the Speights brewery, the largest beer seller in New Zealand. They had a tour so I was obliged to attend.

They had a nice lead in to the actual brewery workings with many displays showing the history of beer around the world as well as in New Zealand.

Water purifiers. The brewery sits on top of 5 fresh water springs. There is a faucet outside the building and locals fill up over 1 million liters of water there every year. I saw a couple of people with at least 10 jugs they were filling.

Mmm...hops..but don't eat them, you'll be sorry

The all important beer tasting. Similar to the Monteiths brewery that last 5 or 10 minutes were allotted for pouring your own beers. The guide started a DVD of Speights famous "Southern Man" TV spots and we had until the finish to have our go at the beer. The biggest seller, by far, is the gold medal brew. I'd had it a few times earlier and it always seemed to leave a strange aftertaste. I was hoping that the brewery experience would be different, but it still tasted strange. Their Pale Ale and their Pilsner, however, were most excellent!

Soon after the tour the Santa Claus parade kicked off. Good times for all!

The crowds assembled for the Santa Claus Parade. If my memory is correct, most parades in the states always seem to start in the morning around 10 or so. Not here, the festivities kicked off at a nice reasonable 3 pm, plenty of time to sleep in.

What is a Christmas parade without Sponge Bob

It's good to see commercialism stays out of community events

What the hell? A book mobile? Do they even have these in the states anymore? Probably not, considering some libraries are struggling to even stay open. Support your local library!!

Christmas and Rocket Ships, of course.

They don't look any less scary in person.

The man of the hour.

Hogwarts hostel (The one just behind the trees)

The last three days (four nights) I spent in Sumner after a 6 hour bus ride from Dunedin. Sumner is located right on the coast on the north side the Lyttleton harbor just 10 km or so from downtown Christchurch. The number 3 bus will get you there from the city bus exchange. I stayed at a nice hostel called Marine Backpackers for just $18 a night. I got there fairly late, around 8 pm but there was a certain quality to Sumner that instantly attracted my attention, namely the beach break less than 200 m from the hostel. Ok, so the waves are so-so and it is a beach break but I haven't been surfing in 6 weeks and I was seriously jonesing to get wet. Luck was on my side and the next day had some decent swell and a slight offshore wind so I was able to feed the beast for a couple of hours. Man it felt so great to be surfing again. If I keep on going on and on about it please don't hold it against me.

Wednesday the wave machine had some sort of malfunction so I took a nice hike around the bluff from town, most of the pictures I have of Sumner are from the hike. Apparently the mechanic made a house call because the waves were back on yesterday and I spent another 3 hours or so in the water. The crowd here was almost non-existent and there was hardly anyone on the outside waiting for the bigger sets, so I could pick off all of the nicer waves at my leisure. Great time! Maybe only chest high at the biggest but it didn't matter at all. It sort of reminded me of Bolinas when it's breaking right out front of the road. I was going to come into Christchurch last night but I decided to stay the night out there again in case things were looking good today. It was clean, but very small, plus I had to fulfill my blogging obligations :-) Here are some pictures of the area around Sumner.

Small but good

The bay from the bluff

Cool house with an awesome view

Blue skies and beautiful scenery

A little cove just next to Taylor's Mistake Beach.

I guess you can't really see it that well, but the house at center has a giant rock overhanging it. Really neat. This French guy that I was walking with kept on talking about how he'd never live on or at the base of a cliff for fear of a rock slide. I guess it's one of those risks you have to take.

We saw some people down there and went to investigate. They were fishing and gathering mussels.

I decided it was high time I tried my hand at rock climbing.

BAHHH!!

A little beach community at the end of the walk, Godley's Head.

As far as I could tell this was the only way down to the houses on the beach.

Looking back towards Christchurch and New Brighton. We had come around that bluff on the left.

The track ended at a car park...at the end of a long road. Luckily for us, there were some people coming up to their car just as we arrived and they gave us a lift back into Sumner. Here's a view of Sumner from the road above town.

Yesterday morning I took a couple pictures while waiting for the waves to come up a little bit.

I forgot to mention, I met an American in Sumner named Matt who was just here for a few days to renew his Australian visa. He's currently living there with his girlfriend along the gold coast and surfs 2 or 3 times a day. Rough life. He mentioned a surfboad outfit back in the states called Cooperfish. It looks like they have some nice boards. http://www.cooperfishsurfboards.com/ Anyway, Matt told me that last year he was involved in a surf movie project called "Invasion from Planet C". It's a science fiction surf movie... http://www.invasionfromplanetc.com/. I'm pretty sure that's Matt in front with the white hat on. I guess there's a pretty killer laser beam while surfing scene. The trailer is supposed to be up within the week and the movie is supposed to be released sometime in January, so keep your eyes peeled! Matt's my space site http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=4787424

It looks like there are some still photos from the shoot while they were in New Zealand at this website http://good-times.webshots.com/album/481992287hajjWh.

They also shot on location in Pavones Costa Rica!!! Matt and I had some interesting conversation about where Pavones is headed. He's of the opinion that it's in for a rough time ahead.

So now I'm back in Christchurch for just one night and I'm flying up to Wellington tomorrow morning where I'll meet up with Justine and Erin, a couple of Kiwis that I met at Stuart Kelly's wedding a few years back. I guess I'm going to visit with some family tomorrow straight from the airport so it should be some good times.

One more pic from here in Christchurch of a cool concert that happened to be going on in the Cathedral square as I was walking from the bus to the hostel. I think these guys called themselves Black Market Art. Looked pretty young, but sounded really good. Sort of a Doors and Violent Femmes mix but more melodically interesting.

Until next time.