Blogs from Raglan, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 11

Mike and I have a beautiful drive back to Raglan through the National Reserves. Mike's not much for taking pictures so no pics. The reserves are huge and it takes hours to drive through them. A third of the drive back to Raglan was through the reserves. Good on ya New Zealand for protecting their native land and vegetation and not selling out to developing every inch of it. The reserves have thick forests of ferns, palm trees and other native trees on mountains with steep slopes that lead into beautiful, wide rivers. It weird because it totally reminds me of something you might see in Hawaii or some tropical island but the weather isn't tropical at all. I've heard the weather on the North Island in the summer is very tropical. Seeing that river made ... read more

Hello I took my last drive through the Marlborough Sound. Leaving Nelson and the South Island was hard but that is the way. I got to the port town of Picton where i would catch the boat back to the North Island. That was the last day with my car. Ode to the Car by Adam Sandler. I will miss it and the freedom it allowed. I parked it and left the key and a note that read "Merry Christmas and god save the Queen", on the dash. That will make someone's day. Just pay that good Karma forward. Good times in Wellington. Sidenote) Dave and Colten , Wellington has the most beautiful women in New Zealand. FYI. I stayed there longer than i thought. They were having the annual Dragon Boat races there in the ... read more

After Hahei we headed across to the west coast to the surfing town of Raglan. I think this has to be one of my favourite places in NZ and I've only seen about 20% of the country so far! The town just has this chilled out feeling where anything goes. We stayed at Karioi Lodge- a really funky place set in the bush with hammocks and decks that look out over the rugged west coast... and the meanest chef who puts on some amazing homemade food! First up.... Surf School! Joined by my American buddies we took on the waves! And guess what... first time up (Go the Incredibles!). Ok, we were just surfing the white break waters but it felt good! After an exhausting afternoon we head back to camp. More fun came as night ... read more

Since leaving the Claire to be a scrubba in the Mousetrap hostel myself and Kristina spent a coiple of days in Auckland with our friends Marco (Swiss) and Mel&Bery (English/Hungarian) in a lovely place called the City Groove. We mainly looked about selling Frank (couldn't do it - now in Wellington probably) and eating at the wonderfully cheap chineese foodcourt - tasty. After that we headed south to Hamilton (from whence the last blog came) and then to Raglan where we had an amazing tranquil and fun 2 days camping with the most Kiwi farmer in the world - all answers were - "ah yeah mate" or "sweet mate". We went swimming in huge waves in the sea and founsd a perfect swimming pool (pictured). Lots of fun and great weather. So at the end of ... read more

Leaving Hahei behind, we drove towards Raglan on the West coast. Raglan beach is famous for having one of the worlds longest lefthand breaks (surfer speak for waves coming into shore from the left I think!). When we arrived at the Rainforest Lodge, there was so much booze going into the fridge we couldn't shut the door. A good sign of things to come. The lodge was really nice and had lots of facilities, and extras including a high ropes course and a flying fow (zipline). We had a laugh on this and managed not to fall or hurt ourselves despite going two at a time. Those who had chosen to learn to surf were given 45 minutes of instruction in the 'Shed' then they went down to the beach to kit up. We followed in ... read more