Text from the Original kitesurfing.com.au post by Rob.
Last November, when I last saw Miccie and Caro in Merimbula, they mentioned in passing that they’d be heading over to NZ after a stop in Sydney in December/January and why don’t I come and join them on the trip. I wrote it off as just polite conversation, not really taking it seriously. Well, come January in Sydney the invite went out again and then again, so I reckoned it musta been fair dinkum so I started to give it some thought. On less than two weeks notice in high season I guessed that the chances of getting flights would be about zero to nil. Well, surprisingly, I rang Qantas and sure enough, seats available in both directions, so flights booked!
The taxi pickup was 0430 on Friday morning so we figured there’s no point even going to bed — we headed off the the city for a big night out. Arriving back around 0230 we got everything all packed up in time for the 0430 pickup. All seemed fine til we were past check-in at the airport and starting sitting around, killing time before boarding the flights. Zzzzzzz. Then flight delays, and more delays. Finally, two hours late, we left.
Johnno kindly offered to collect us at the airport and ironically even though my flight departed after the girls, I managed to arrive first. Booked into our hotel, had a wander around Auckland for a day then Johnno drove us around the Cape on the North Island for the weekend with his friend Athena.
Brilliant time all around with magnificent wide open nearly-deserted beaches, towering forests of Kauri pines, wild horses on the beach, perfect surf, dead sharks on the beach, boogie boarding on the sand dunes, and even ran across some folks kite-fishing. (http://www.fishingkites.co.nz) No appropriate wind for kitesurfing and we didn’t have a pump or a surfboard with us so we had to be content with stopping off at the hardware store, picking up a 50m piece of boat anchor rope and a broom handle to fashion ourselves a car-surfing rig. All went according to plan until just about the time we were ready to head home to find that John’s Bighorn had a dead alternator and a dead battery, we were on the beach, sinking in the sand and the tide had just started to come in. Luckily, M&C managed to flag down truck on the beach who gave us a jump and got us going again before the tyres sunk in too deeply and we were on our way. Unfortunately, a few weeks later, Johnno wasn’t so lucky… (http://www.uziwa.com) After returning to Auckland to acquire some transport in the form of a backpacker van (if you ever want to hire someone with great negotiating skills, look no further than the closest experienced backpacker — never seen such serious negotiating take place over a car!) we eaded south then up to the Bay of Islands, stopping along the way to take in the majesty of the Coramandel peninsula during a washout where all roads in and out of the town where we were were blocked.
Next day after the water receded, continued on down the coast to Rotarua visiting several hot springs and breathing loads of sulphur fumes, on to Taupo and a swim in the lake, and to Hawkes Bay to stop in and visit friends Steve and Teresa, catch a few waves at Te Awanga before saying goodbye to the girls and hopping a bus back to Auckland on an 8 hour sojourn in a 50 degree C bus that had me feeling like I’d spent the day in a sauna. After an overnight stop and more kind hospitality from Johnno in Auckland, spent another eight hours in the airport attempting to get on an earlier flight home and returned to Sydney. If ya haven’t done NZ’s north island, get yer lazy arse over there and see the place. It’s nothing short of incredible. I’ll be back.
Cheers,
Robbo
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