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Published: September 2nd 2009
Since I first recieved a warm kiwi welcome from complete strangers in Auckland, it's been a blurr.
The first few days consisted of wondering around Auckland jet-lagged, a little confused and completely lost.
Things started to pick up when I headed for Hamilton to pay Jacob a visit. After a night on the town with some of his fellow med student flat mates, we headed to Mt. Manganui on the east coast to catch a few waves. I managed to find a decent bodyboard in Jacob's buddy's garage. 12C and blowin stink. I paddled out into a lineup of mostly kayakers - who were getting handled by the head high surf. We scarfed down some oranges and meat pies roadside, warmed up and had another go at the ice cream headache causing swell literally coming from Antartica.
I met up with Allen back in Auckland where we hired(rented) a sweet little nissan pulsar which helped us find some snow on north side (Whakapapa) and south side (Turoa) of Mt. Ruapehu. Our first taste of snowy slopes was a white out blizzard which caused the top half of Whakapapa ('Wha' is pronunced like 'fa"). Met some kiwis from Auckland
at the University Club Lodge and found some fresh snow up on top the next morning alng with a few skiers with parachutes gliding down the mountain. Andrew (a fellow North Carolinain) gave us some shelter and showed us some off trail runs at Turoa that were insanely steep but powdery!(sorry, unable to take some photos). Then, we then found some natrual hot springs south of Rotorua, called Kerosene Creek, which we met 3 naked old hippies smokin a 'j' who were very willing to tell endless stories of their childhoods. Back to Auckland for now....
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Lisa
non-member comment
Matt!!
You are awesome! Looks like you are settling into hippie-ness quite well. Miss you here in NC.