The Surfing Mecca

We arrived into Brisbane on Thursday night after a great flight from Auckland on Emirates Airlines. During the 3 hour flight we enjoyed a 5-course meal and a plethora of channels to choose from on our personal TV's. We barely had time to finish watching "Slumdog Millionaire" before the flight was over. We're wishing we would've booked all of our flights with Emirates.

After arriving into Brizzy we picked up our new ride Friday morning. The "Hippie Camper" (a modern version of Bongo the Terrible) will be our surf mobile/home for the next two weeks. She's newer, has a sink and fridge, but doesn't have the "character" of Bongo. Plus the horrendous paint job screams "tourist"...not the most subtle way to pull up to a surf break.

Since we were anxious to get in the water we immediately headed north to Noosa Heads, which is located along the Sunshine Coast. As we pulled into the carpark our mouths were gaping at the sight before us. We scrambled to get our boards waxed as we witnessed perfectly groomed chest to head high waves pour in. Unfortunately, we were not alone. Literally, hundreds of people littered the series of five right points and it became a battle of the strongest. Although a bit annoying, it was great to surf without our wetsuits in 70 degree water.

The next morning we awoke to our 5:30am wake-up call and headed to a local surf break. We had spent the night at Steve and Hannah's (a couple we met through Couchsurfing.com-a great site for travellers who want to meet locals). Anyways, we arrived to see a break that matched it's description from our "Surfer's Guide": Alexandra Headlands: Powerful right point break with a scary ledge break and sucking pits further out. Dustin and Steve paddled out in the 8ft+ surf while I stayed on the beach. At first I questioned my decision, but after watching the "small" sets come through I quickly realized I had no business being out there and had made the right choice. After the boys had caught a few they came in tired but elated.

On a non-surfing note, we had our first Koala sighting yesterday while walking through Noosa National Park. Since then we have seen a few others sitting high up in the Eucalyptus trees. They are not very active during the day, choosing to curl up in a little ball and sleep most of the time.

The last few days we haven't been able to pull ourselves away from Noosa Heads' beautiful right points. Our routine has been to get up early, surf beautiful chest high waves for a few hours, come in for a lunch break, go for a short hike around the park, and then head back out in the afternoon for another surf. Once the weekend crowds headed back to Brisbane, the surf became much more enjoyable since we didn't have to fight for every wave.

So far the East Coast of Australia has reminded us a lot of Southern California, both the good (great right-point breaks) and the bad (tons of people, way too much development). Our mission for the 9 days we have left on the East Coast is simple...surf.

Bye Bye Bongo

Just a quick update on Bongo the Terrible....we sold her this morning to three guys from St. Louis, Missouri for the exact amount we bought her for!!! And with the exchange rate working in our favor between now and when we bought it, we actually made $100 USD on the deal. Although we did spend about $300 USD on all her little breakdowns. Overall, a great deal for getting 65 days of use out of her.

We now have our last two days free to relax and explore Auckland before heading to Australia.

Final Thoughts on New Zealand

With only 3 days of our 70 day stint in New Zealand remaining, we thought we'd compile the many random thoughts and impressions this stunning country has left on us...

• Scenery: New Zealand is an amazing country. If you took the best scenery of the US that we've seen - the mountains of Yosemite, the fjords and glaciers of Alaska, the coastline of Big Sur, the beaches of the Caribbean, the geothermal features of Yellowstone, the lakes and forests of Minnesota, the Big Sky country of Montana - and put it into an area not much larger than Minnesota you'd have New Zealand.
• Coffee: Regular drip/filter coffee is extremely hard to find anywhere in NZ. The coffee shops only make espresso. Your choices are either a "long black" (espresso with hot water), a "flat white" (long black with milk), or a "short black" (long black with less water). We finally found this little coffee shop that had regular drip coffee. We think they may even have a few shops back in the US....it's this place called Starbucks.
• Surf: We realized how good we had it while living in California. Around Ventura there is usually at least a few days each week with clean, ground-swell surf. Here in NZ we were either very unlucky or the surf is very inconsistent. (We talked with a few traveling surfers from CA and they had the same experience as us so we're going with inconsistent.) We had a couple of amazing days of surf (Kaikoura and Gisborne), but most of the time all we found was somewhat messy wind-swell. When the surf was on, it was usually much more challenging (Dustin says more fun/exciting) than the waves around Ventura...stronger currents, lots of rocks along shore and in the lineup, and much faster, more powerful waves (not for the faint of heart).
• New Zealanders: We have been lucky enough to meet some of the most amazing people in this country. The people we met were all very warm, genuine, and treated us like we were part of the family.
• Sinks: The sinks in most public bathrooms have separate faucets for hot and cold water so your choice is to either wash your hands with ice cold water or with scalding hot water. Or you can do what we do and try to move your hands really fast between the two, trying to get a mix of each.
• Burgers (Dustin's thoughts): Who would've thought that New Zealand has significantly better burgers than the US? No more needs to be said about Fergburger (best burgers ever), but the couple of other places we had burgers at were also much better than anywhere in the US. Besides the usual beef patty with bacon, cheese, lettuce and tomato I've had one hamburger with all that plus hashbrowns and egg. Another had the hamburger plus bacon, egg, sliced steak, cheese, lettuce and tomato. Both were excellent. Try putting an egg (over-easy) on your next hamburger...trust me, you won't be sorry.
• Flyfishing (Dustin's thoughts): The fly fishing has been amazing. There are not a lot of fish, and many of them are ridiculously hard to catch, but they are big. The ones I caught averaged 19-20". In the many times I went flyfishing, I only saw other people 3 or 4 times. For the most part, I had these beautiful rivers to myself, with nothing around except the occasional sheep.
• Muffins: Actually, not regular muffins, but "savory muffins". Most places sell "sweet muffins": blueberry, banana nut, cranberry, etc and "savory muffins". The savory muffins have some combination of sausage, bacon, cheese and various herbs. Our favorites include the sausage and mushroom savory (tastes just like Thanksgiving stuffing) and the jalapeno cheese savory.
• Showers: We're getting used to the backpackers lifestyle of not showering regularly. Rachel has had a harder time adjusting than Dustin...he's been practicing for this his whole life.
• Best Foods: We tried the Korean Pancakes again when we got back to Auckland and they were still very good, but not near as tasty as we remembered. Maybe we were just really hungry after eating all the bad food while we were stranded on the island in Fiji. We adjusted our "Top Foods" list accordingly. Also, we left off all the food we had during our time with the Lowrys. Dave is an amazing cook and he would've monopolized the list...smoked mussels, salmon gravlax, meatloaf with plumb chutney, burgers (with bacon and egg), and all the fresh vegetables from his garden.
• Vehicles: There are NO pickups here. We haven't seen a single full-sized pickup the entire time we've been here. There have been a few small, Ford Ranger-size trucks, but it's almost entirely cars and vans. It's not at all uncommon to see mid-sized cars towing large boats or big trailers.


• Favorite towns: Nelson and Dunedin


• Best beaches: Coromandel area


• Best fishing: Mohaka and Mataura Rivers


• Best Surf: Kaikoura


• Best Mountains: Mt. Cook


• Best Hiking: Queenstown to Milford Sound area


• Best Kiwi Phrase: "Good on ya" meaning good for you or congratulations

Beach Haven

We've spent the past week nestled in at Dave & Dianne Lowry's beach house on Tanner's Point. The Lowrys had spent three years in Minnesota for Dave's job where they became friends with Dustin's mom and stepdad. We spent one night with them at their house in Hamilton when we first arrived in to New Zealand and made plans to meet back up at their place on the beach at the end of our trip. Tanner's Point is in Tauranga Bay on the east coast of the North Island. If you replaced the ocean with a lake it would've been a perfect substitute for the typical cabin on a lake setting in northern Minnesota. We even filled our days doing very Minnesota summer activities: kayaking, swimming, fishing, and eating meals on the deck overlooking the water.

The Lowrys and another couple who just moved to New Zealand from MN joined us at Tanner's Point for the weekend. (We arrived a day early and stayed a few days after they left, giving Bongo the Terrible a break from us and giving ourselves a chance to relax in an actual house.) While everyone was there we had a fabulous weekend filled with great company, plenty of fun and relaxation on the water, and some amazing food. (Fresh caught Trevally sashimi, honey smoked mussels, Dave's excellent salmon gravlax, and NZ's finest wines and cheeses.)

Prior to our mellow week at the bay we had headed out of Gisborne and left the last little bit of swell behind. Our route brought us up through Rotorua, home to plenty of Yellowstone-like geothermal activity, where we packed as much as we could into our one day in the area. We spent the morning hiking through the sulfur springs, bubbling mud holes, and geysers. In the afternoon we figured we'd add mountain biking to the ever expanding list of adventurous activities we've done on this trip. They have an excellent network of tracks on a pine-forested mountain just outside of town. Since neither of us have done much mountain biking we stuck to the "easier" tracks which still provided plenty of excitement (and exercise on all the up-hill sections). After mountain biking we finished the day soaking at one of the mineral hot springs situated on the lake that the town is famous for.

(Yes, we realize how lucky we are and we're very grateful that we've been given this opportunity to travel.)

Tomorrow we'll be reluctantly leaving the Lowry's and continuing our trek back towards Auckland.

Surf, Fish, & Volcanoes

It's been an interesting and exciting week...we found some of the best fly fishing of the trip, spent 7.5hrs hiking (without a break) around/up volcanoes (and dodging a few falling rocks), and we even had a few mellow days at the beach surfing some great waves.

After leaving Napier we were planning on working our way north along the coast in search of surf. But, with no signs of swell on the immediate forecast we decided it would be a good time to head inland for a while instead. We drove towards Taupo, stopping at the Mohaka River along the way. We found a nice place to camp by the river, well away from the road and any people. There also happened to be a great riffle and pool directly in front of our camp that was full of mostly 18-21" rainbow trout, with a few brown trout mixed in. In an afternoon and the following morning, Dustin caught a dozen nice trout out of the pool (and probably lost at least that many more). We had a few great trout meals there. FYI Rachel is fishing just not near as hard-core as someone else.

Who's sick of fishing pictures??? Not Dustin!

After Dustin had his fill of fishing we continued west to Tongariro National Park. At 7am the following morning we departed on the 11.5 mile (not counting side trips) Tongariro Alpine Crossing. This trek is billed as the "best day hike in New Zealand". We're not convinced of that, but it was an excellent hike. Our route took us past old lava flows, water-filled explosion craters, steaming vents, and hot springs. The stark, rugged landscape was like being on a different planet. Two hours into the hike we came to the base of Mt. Ngauruhoe, one of NZ's most active volcanoes. There was an unmarked route going straight up the face of the volcano. We both figured we couldn't come this close to a volcano and not try to climb it. We started scrambling up the 45 degree slope of loose rock, gravel, and sand (it was a case of step up two feet, slide back down one foot or sometimes two). For those that have climbed Half Dome in Yosemite, picture the face of Half Dome without the cables and with loose gravel instead of smooth granite. After an hour of climbing we looked around and realized we were only half way to the top. After another hour we finally made it to the crater, only to be greeted by what had to be 70+ mph winds. We were literally getting knocked over as we walked. We figured we'd seen enough and started heading down. On the way down we had to dodge a few falling rocks knocked free by the wind or other climbers. Luckily we made it down safely and continued on. We were both tired, rattled, and covered in dirt from the side trip up the volcano, but still had about 8 miles to go. We decided we'd try to hurry to catch the 3pm shuttle, instead of taking our time for the later shuttle. (We had parked at one end of the trail and had to take a shuttle back to our vehicle.) After running the last several miles we made the shuttle in time to get back to town for a shower and a decent meal.

Mt. Ngauruhoe:

After the trek we headed back towards the coast to catch the swell that was forecast for the next day. We've spent the last couple of days here in Gisborne relaxing on the beach. We got a few great surf sessions in, beach runs, and even several yoga sessions on the beach.

We only have about 2.5 weeks left in NZ. We're planning on fishing a few rivers on our way back towards Auckland and then spending the rest of the time surfing and relaxing at the beach. Don't worry mothers, no more volcano climbing for us!

Bongo the Terrible's new bling:

Poll

Since food, beer, and wine have played a prominent roll in many of our posts I figured I'd add a little poll on here. Remember, while I'm hiking Dustin spends his days fishing....

Check out the poll on the bottom right.

-Rachel

The Joys of Food & Wine

Over the last week we completed the Nelson to Napier "New Zealand Wine Trail", taking us from the top of the South Island to the middle of the North Island's East Coast. This stretch of country is home to a plethora of wineries, from small family-run operations to large, sprawling commercial estates. The expanse of land hugs a stretch of ocean teeming with life, and along with fertile soil, it makes the local seafood and produce both plentiful and cheap. There are numerous wineries, breweries, and olive oil producers that all offer free tastings, which we took full advantage of.

We spent a fabulous couple of days in Nelson where we found our favorite brewery - Tasman Brewing Company. It had 3 employees, 20+ beers & ciders on tap, and you were encouraged to taste as many as you desire and stay as long as you want.

Being the hunter-gatherers that we are, and since neither of us had caught a fish for dinner in a few days, we spent an hour at low tide collecting a pile of New Zealand Green Mussels for dinner. NZ mussels have become a staple for us. It we can't get them ourselves at least they are very cheap to buy (about $1USD/lb).

Picton Harbor:As we tasted our way through the region we happened upon some local surf as well. We found a mellow right point break, very similar to C-Street in Ventura. We surfed with around 20 other people, by far the most we've seen at one surf spot in New Zealand, but nothing compared to the crowds of California. Unfortunately, the swell was short lived and what was a perfect, mellow break flattened after a day.

More NZ hospitality was bestowed on us when we stayed with some family friends in Hastings. We spent a lovely afternoon wine tasting with Glenice & Peter (2 local wine connoisseurs) who delightfully imparted their wine tasting skills and knowledge of the local vintages.

After wine tasting, we enjoyed a sensational home-cooked meal. We finished the day by sipping dessert wine and eating stinky (yummy) blue cheese as we watched Casablanca (preparation for the Morocco part of our trip). Yes, we agree this is not what typical backpackers do on trips, but we felt we earned it after our once-a-week showers and campstove meals for the last month and a half.