Aotearoa - Part 3

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

atvs, motorcycles, cows, sheeps, acres galore, rivers, streams, a few km of off road track built into their acreage...geez, yes, i'm jealous

we headed up to the waipu caves to do a bit of our own spelunking and tried to capture a few sheep on the way

yup, waipu caves, all you need is a swimsuit and flashlight!

after the waipu caves we headed down the beach for a beer and a surf, life is good

Aotearoa - Part 2

Caving! We headed south after Raglan to the Waitomo area. The greenglow worms, underground rivers, big abseils...how could we say no! Definitely a highlight of the trip.
hmmm, where does this river go?

the way in looking out, reminds me of the sharks of Australia (more on that later)

deep down in the dark, there were two sexy humans clad in even sexier striped leggings

let's go......down!

it's lush around here, you get wet hiking from all of the foliage. all that water for the underground rivers that have cut through the cliffs to create the caves has to come from somewhere.

the biggest abseil of the tour, but first you have to slide through this crack, go babe go!

this was a good abseil, it went negative as soon as you stepped off the ledge...but to get off the ledge you first had to lean back parallel to the ground...hmmm, that doesn't feel normal

glowworms! once we turned off the headlamps and your eyes had time to adjust, they were like the stars at night...absolutely millions of them

glowworm traps, careful bugs, those are some sticky threads

in, out, they both look beautiful

lights, camera, action...this one's getting framed

Aotearoa pt. 1

Pearcy, our trusty campervan. stove, fridge, table, bed, sink...everything you need!
the beach at raglan, the points weren't working, but the black sand beach left no complaints
the lefthand points...bummer i missed out again...that makes me 0-2.
sheep!
at the top of the falls


We found some great deals on flights to NZ in early March and popped over the ditch. We rented a campervan and hit the road for about a week.

Crowdy Bay National Park

country road bring me home!

the aussie bush...fun 'til a large critter says hello a bit too close...if only we had our camera when we saw an iguana the size of my arm (yeah, it was huge!;))

cheers!

sand impressions, probably a good print eh?

some say the shortest distance between two points is a straight line...and some say the road less travelled...

country towns, a little surf, sign me up in 20 years!

aaawwwwwww yeah outlander, let's get this mini-beast sandy! ok, but seriously, on the way back, we (i) got stuck, bri swapped to driving, i pushed, we were out in 2...good times! and people we're having a laugh at our trials...at least we got out before the rangers came and noticed our lack of beach driving sticker

just around a bit south from crescent head...miles and miles, excuse me, km's and km's of emptiness

how cool is this track to the beach...nothing like home.

good times, minus the high school kids that came out on our last night there and partied and kept the whole campsite up til late....damn kids;)

it's a long walk to the other end...game on!

Crowdy is probably the last word we'd use...isolated is more like it. About 4-5 hours north of the city (Sydney), well, you don't have to go that far for endless beach after endless beach. It's a little out of control, tiresome really;), how many empty beaches can one country have? Unfair, and Australia only has 2 people per sq km or something along those lines...share some with Cali will ya!?!? We found a great campsite that wasn't on the website, thank god, b/c everyone else and their mother was camping that Australia Day weekend. We were expecting that, but we weren't expecting whole campgrounds to be sold out. Luckily we came across this campground that the ranger told us was just finished a couple of years ago and wasn't on the internet yet. Nice, sometimes when you turn down the wrong country dirt road, you get lucky eh?

If you had to choose one type of food to live on for the rest of your life...

all you can eat sushi washed down by a Coopers? yes please!

mmm, it always seems to taste better when you make it yourself...don't forget the wasabi!

more than you can eat sushi on the oceanview balcony

...mine would be salmon. We talked circles around this topic the other day at a bbq we hosted...ice cream came up, potato, snapper, gummi bears...you name it, it all sounds good. however, with salmon, you can eat it raw or cooked...so i figure we have a winner right there? btw, the rules were that was it...you could only eat the item of food chosen...no toppings, seasonings, etc. salmon it is....right?!?! comment away...

Field Day '10

it's tough to catch this icon on a perfectly sunny day, not really, we just haven't made it a focus

Field Day! a few different stages, food, tents, good times

a few people turned up

rockNroll!!! yes, i don't shave on the weekends, couldn't be bothered really

these guys were good, a blend of electronica and rock, solid.

the local bats were out and about from the domain, you've seen them in all their glory in previous posts yeah?

watch out for these two!

andrew, deena, and brad, the other 3/7ths of our Field Day crew

So we had a great NYE up on the north head of Manly with our mates Brad and Deena, and their mate from NZ, Andrew. Heaps of fireworks, there was about 5 barges in the Sydney harbour entertaining the hundreds of thousands that came out to welcome in the new year. we got a great spot up on the heads. of course we brought the umbrellas to guard ourselves from the aussie sun. brad, andrew and i hiked down to the bay to jump in the ocean to cool off. it's always a little weird jumping into the tasman sea around here...b/c you know sharks are out there somewhere. the next day we got up bright and early -ahem- and headed over to Field Day in the Domain, Sydney's park next to the CBD. As usual when headed to the city, we took the ferrry over, then walked up to the domain. Heaps of bands made it another good time...