New Zealand - Raglan - Surfing

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Woke up with a headache. Bit odd seeing as I only had 2 beers last night! My alarm went off first, it auto went on snooze though obv. Soon enough everyones alarms start beeping so I knew it must be time to get up. Luckily once again I had packed everything I needed the night before so there wasn’t much for me to do. My backpack is way to heavy, I’m deffo gonna have to get rid of some stuff! It’s gonna break my heart but it has to be done! So once ready everyone climbs on the bus to head to a surfer town called Raglan. Some people are severely hungover (especially this awesome ginger dude called Scott who seems to drink more than the average alcoholic). So I sleep most of the start of the journey. I’m so glad I have my lucky pillow with me. After leaving mine at the airport I bought a new one from a shop called ‘holy sheet’ in Newtown, and it really is HEAVENLY! Plus it is nice to take a bit of Newtown everywhere with me.. Aaaaaaah I miss that place SO much! So yeah I have a sleep, we stop at a few places on the way to take pictures, and get some brekkie.. And then we make our way into Raglan! Buy some supermarket supplies again and then go to our lodges in some mountains.

Our lodges are AWESOME! Really homely and stuff. I’m staying with Martina and a girl called Steffi, both german! Martina unfortunately is going to be staying here for another 2 nights so it’s time to say bye to her! L. I also signed up to hire out a boogie board on the beach for today which is pretty exciting stuff. Raglan is meant to be the best place to surf in NZ because it’s where apparently the wave breaks really cool. I can’t give exact specifics because I’m not a wave expert but yeah, it’s meant to be worth giving a try. So everyones kind of panicing about booking the rest of their Stray journey online because a lot of the buses are filling up. In fact some of the people on our bus can’t join us to leave tomorrow because the bus is already fully-booked, booo! So basically I need to be back in Auckland for the 22nd to fly back to Sydney.. I was terrified the buses were fully booked! So Martina gets the computer before me so I bagsy going next as I have just enough time to try and sort my Stray stuff out before I go to the beach. However just it’s my turn the stupid coin machine decides not to work, turns out it’s full. So I tell the guy at reception and he’s like ‘yea yea I’ll come sort it’ so I’m like okay but I need it to be sorted quickly, y’know? Anyway he never came quick enough and I had to leave to go rent my boogie board!

Drive to the beach.. It’s stunning! Black sand beach because of the volcanic rock and the waves are super amazing. So it’s $15 to hire a boogie board and wetsuit, which isn’t too bad. Some rented surf boards but I figured I’m gonna be doing a whole 4 day surf camp when I get back to Oz so doesn’t seem much point and boogie boards can be just as fun anyway! They didn’t let me down.. It was wicked! We had them for like 2 and half hours and I stayed in the sea pretty much the entire times. Managed to ride the waves a good few times, and I’m super excited to actually surf properly in the future! In fact I think I’ll be pretty kick ass at it, if I say so myself. After we had a bit of a chill out sesh on the beach and got bitten like fuck by sand flies. Little shits.. I have multiple red marks all over my legs and they’re itchy as fuck! Anyhoo we got back to the hostel and everyones still panicing about booking the buses after the last scare of some people not being able to come with us the next day, so we all rush to the computers. Unfortunately I didn’t get there fast enough and had to wait in queue, panicing the others will fill the spaces up. Luckily not, I managed to book the rest of my entire journey right upto the 22nd when I leave, in fact I even had a couple of days leftover so I’m staying in Queenstown for 2 extra nights so I can do some more activities, maybe skydiving and bungee, woohoo!

Once everyone had stopped panicing we ate our dinner and started drinking.. Naturally! Then at half 9 we all headed to a place called ‘the barn’ which is where we can go after hours to continue partying. The entire night was hilarious.. There was table tennis and football table and sofas and stuff.. And JENGA! Jenga and booze mixed together is just generally brilliant. The outcome was also brilliant, we were all smashed.. I finished off my coronas and put my ipod on the stereo. Everyone had a bit of a singalong to some classics.. Including lion kings ‘circle of life’ ! (it’s also my ringtone!). The best one was by far bohemian rhapsody, we were all totally in the moment! Unfortunately there was no toilet so I kept having to run outside and do some squattage, classy lady huh! So there’s a cool guy called Scott whose hilarious, bit of a life and soul of the party kinda guy.. And he showed obvious interest in this Canadian chick from the lodges (who also happened to be travelling with her mum, what the FUCK?!).. Was pretty hilarious how he seduced his way in! Fair play to him though, he got the end result.. Womanizer! Other than that not really much gossip, oh other than this weird couple who aren’t actually a couple and seem to try it on with other people in front of each other.. Not entirely sure what that’s about!

Anyhoo, we all then pissed off to bed. Laters xxx

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