North Island part one

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So it's been a while!

Since the last time I wrote (which feels as though it was so long), i did a Waka tour where Michelle, Stina, Elizabeth, Dave, Emma, Francis, Alicia and I ate cooked mussels and oysters with wine, cheese and crackers and chocolate tim tams (chocolate penguins bars). The waka is a traditional Maori canoe, the one we were on was a model of the ones that were used to cross the islands (possibly from Tahiti) to New Zealand.

The next day I went skydiving, I was pretty much completely calm and jumped from 12,000 feet. It was amazing and I definitely want to do it again some day. After skydving we returned to Paihia and after lunch we went back to Auckland, said goodbye to Emma, Stina and Elizabeth, and gained 10 more people which meant a very full bus (20 people)!

Drove down to Raglan part way we stopped off at a sustainable farm, run by a guy called Charlie 2 (we would meet Charlie 1 later on). He had donkeys, horses, llamas, sheep, eels, cows and a super cute dog who was a retriever/poodle mix. Then we went kayaking on the river down to where we would be met by a boat owned by Charlie 1 and have BBQ and burgers and beer. While we kayaked down the river we were kind of lucky because the as the tide was going out and we were going down towards the river mouth. However, the wind was against us the entire way. I managed 3/4 of the way by myself in my kayak, and I asked to be towed and attached to another boat as I was knackered. I guess for others it would mean they would relax a bit but because the canoe I was attached to was a double, it meant they were going a lot faster and I felt I had to go faster too. So when we saw to the main boat, we sped up to be the first to get a cold beer.

After all of us got on the boat, we cruised into Raglan harbour where we got back into the van and drove into the centre of Raglan to do some food shopping before going up to the house we were staying in for 2 days.Once we did the shopping we discovered that Raglan library had free WiFi even when shut so most of us got out our phones/iPods/electronic devices and used the net. We then left the town and went to the house we were staying in, about a 10 minute drive. The house had 20 beds throughout though three were in a caravan. I managed to share the downstairs apartment (with its own kitchen, bathroom and TV) with Simone, Michelle and I in one room, and Gavin and Tash in the other. After a bit of time chilling, we opened a bottle of wine and then hopped into the hot tub upstairs. We stayed in there while some people napped, watched curling on the TV, or started making food. As there was one main kitchen we all took turns to make our food.

Once dinner was done, people started going to sleep, by 10pm most of the others were in bed. The last 6 of us still up played games and then we started leaving for sleep too.

The next morning (which turned out to be Valentine's day) we woke early as we had to have breakfast before doing 15 minutes of yoga before our surf lesson. The day was looking gloomy and about to rain, even though it was still warm. We trekked up the hill to this view point that had a circular deck where as you're doing yoga you can look out over the sea. Then once we had stretched out (and I decided when I get home I should take up yoga again), we walked back down the hill to where the indoor surf lesson was, though the stragglers may have ended up running as it started to rain. Once the instructors were satisfied that we kind of knew what to do in order to stand on a surf board (here I realised I needed more arm muscle), we got into our van, drove down to the beach and and got suited up in wetsuits and swimming costumes. When we were ready we practiced again on the surfboards that were on the sand to make sure we could actually stand up without looking at where our feet were.

Finally we were ready! We carried our boards (two between two of us - one person carrying the front of the two boards and the second person carrying the back end of the two boards) down the beach past some other beginners so that we could space ourselves and not be in fear of hitting them. We were told we would be out there for an hour and a half... it felt like 40 minutes to me. In that time I managed to stand up twice, got told about 20 times that all I needed to be able to stand up was confidence in myself (which I guess was true) and fall off a lot. When we told that time was nearly up, I decided to get out as I'd done pretty well. It had been fun but I was getting cold. When we finally looked at where we were, we were much further down the beach than where we started, which meant a really long walk back to the changing rooms. I did watch one of the Katrins' stand up the entire way to where she had about 1/2 a foot of water and then she slipped off the board and face planted straight into the water. She was okay, she just looked around to see if anyone else saw her, but I think I was the only one.

Once we finished the surfing, we got out of our wetsuits (a workout in itself) and rinsed the suits and ourselves and had to turn the suits back so insides were in. Once we were all sorted and back in the van, we drove down to Raglan to get ourselves lunch, ice cream and use the internet at the library. The library was awesome, they put out bags for people to sit on outside the library so people can use the internet in some comfort. We spent a couple of hours there, then most of us got back into the van to go back to the house. When we got back Simon, Michelle, Rebecca and Katrina U went mountain biking, and the rest of us just chilled out. In the evening, when everyone was back, the surfing instructors came around and cooked us food on the BBQ (which was really good food) and hung out with us for a while. Then (I think as I can't quite remember) but most of us went to sleep about 10pm ish as we had to wake up the next day about 6 ish to go see some glow worms.

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