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!!