The Adventure of a Lifetime (thus far): Aotearoa

Mountains, forests, caves, beaches, cliffs, sheep, tractors, oceanviews, horses, NEW ZEALAND!

Mt. Taranaki off in the distance. This is the view away from the beach, out the back from Percy. Mountains on one side, beaches on the other...

yup, we slept there last night, it's about as oceanfront as you can get. i have to thank google maps here. i did some serious homework on google maps to find these surf spots, as lefthand pointbreaks aren't too common across the globe.

bri has been asked (nicely i might add) to take heaps of surf photos while down under, and while she caught the end of this wave, i'm always stoked to have documentation of the sessions. had a chat to a few of the boys out in the lineup and this spot is pretty consistent. the west coast of nz gets a lot of swell (it's called the roaring 40's for a reason), and this reef cleans up a lot of swell. this spot's called graveyards.

is this the biggest horse you have ever seen too? by my math, the fence is about 4' tall...which makes that horse...what? 12' tall? can it be legit? this is a photo bri took while waiting for me to catch a wave, wow, a massive horse eh? comment away.

we have camped in some nice places, but waking up to this outside?!?! hmm, yes please!

mt. taranaki in the distance. cows, mountains, acreage...it looks all good until winter blows through.

cows. not too smart.

something about these kind of photos...eternity?

caves on the beach

walk through cave with taranaki in the background

this shot reminds me of the torrey pines on the cliffs of la jolla and del mar. actually, ever since i went to nz, i always thought that if you combine both islands of nz, it's basically cali

beach caves, black sand reflections

climbing

anyone? does anyone live here? i think there's a person every 2 square km in nz.

off to the Coromandel Pennisula, are you getting tired of the empty beaches yet?

we free camped on the otherside of these steps down to the beach. it's was one of our more questionable camp spots. kind of right down the street from a bunch of holiday homes, streetlights, the whole thing...but we didn't pull off the road until after midnight, so no one really noticed until they had to take the dog out for a pee at 6am.

Onemana, NZ. solid snorkeling at the north end of the beach, and unfortunately, no waves for the whole day.

we drove across to the westside of the coromandel that arvo, and free camped down Waiomu Valley Rd. the best part of the evening (aside from this dinner spot) was when some kids pulled into our turnout at 2am, put their brights on our campervan, and bri told me to......grab our biggest knife! too funny, i'm not too sure what i'm supposed to do if 4 guys jump our campervan, but i had that knife at the ready!! lol. sure enough, i think they were just turning around, which is what you're supposed to do in a turn-around...not free camp.

sunset over our dinner spot

we stopped on our way up north at this sheep show farm. we ended up missing the show, but they had a bunch of sheep around the place. not sure what the pink is all about, maybe the ram likes his ladies dressed in pink?

for our last few days in nz, we were lucky enough to stay at our friend's parent's place. deena and brad are some kiwi friends of ours here in sydney. deena's parent's have a gorgeous place in Langs Beach, NZ. house on the hill overlooking the beach in a small country town...dream house!

yup, this is the view...tough to leave, but they just bought a 48' sailboat...so i think they'll be missing out on a the next few NZ winters up in the S. Pacific