kangaroo sightings

I will be forever grateful to New Zealand for making me fall back in love with mountain biking. I had let that hobby fall off in Australia. Perhaps the trails did not interest me, perhaps there was too much else going on, I am not actually sure, but in New Zealand.... c'est magnifique! It also might help that I bought myself a fun new toy for Christmas 2011 - Specialized Epic 29er. Funnest. Bike. Ever. At least that I have ever ridden. It suits my riding style perfectly and has massively improved my confidence on the descents letting me just find that flow on the trail and enjoy it. And Rotorua has some of the best flowing trails ever. So does Taupo, so we hit them both up for one last hoorah this weekend. We rode as much as two out of shape desk-drivers could ride in a weekend. Much fun was had by all. My only regret is that we did not ride these trails more. But we did so much else and sadly there are only so many weekends.... If anyone wants to pay me to not work though so tha...

B and I headed out to the very tip of the Coromandel peninsula this weekend. Bit of a long drive for a weekend, but it was a beautiful day and an incredibly scenic road, so well worth it. Saturday morning, we packed some food, the hammock, the camp gear and hit the road. We made it to the tip of the Coromandel by the middle of the arvo. Enjoyed a picnic, found a camp spot, went for a swim, and then it was down to serious business.... We are on a mission to clean out our cabinets over the next few weeks. Target for this weekend: bottle of tequila. We had a lovely afternoon drinking campsite margaritas on the beach. Mission accomplished. Before we knew it we were watching the sun set and hadn't yet bothered to cook dinner or set up our tent. Thanks for the full moon though, neither of those were a drama. Another beautiful spot in New Zealand that we will definitely miss... We took the even longer way home stopping off at the same lookout where just 2 years ago we broke the key of...

As we drove north out of Auckland to start our weekend, we realized that we had only ever been north 2 times before. We have done heaps of road trips, but most of those had focused south of Auckland. We also realized that each of these previous trips, we had tried to do exactly what we were setting out to do this weekend, the Cream Trip. It is an all-day cruise of the Bay of Islands that traces the route of the old cream collection and mail distribution boat. The first two attempts we were foiled by terrible weather, and since Brendan was sick for one of those, it is a good thing that we did not pre-book. This time though, determined to do it, we bought tickets a few months in advance. Weather be damned, we were going cruising! Not caring to do anything the easy way, we opted for an 11-hour road trip on Saturday (to cover the 4-hour distance between Auckland the Bay of Islands). Why so long, you ask? Kauri trees. Big ones. We saw the ‘lord of the forest’ measuring almost 14m in circ...

With the clock now ticking we are squeezing the most out of our remaining time in New Zealand. With 8 weekends to go, we spent this one surfing in Raglan. After a lazy Saturday morning, we made our way south for an arvo surfing lesson in Manu Bay. The weather was good (not great as there was a little bit of a chill in the air). Luckily our pre-paid lesson (thanks, GrabOne) included wetsuit hire though making us comfy as in the water. We both had a successful lesson and each managed to stand up a handful of times. Brendan being the more adventurous of us actually managed to stand up while catching a wave whereas by the time I made it to the standing position the wave was mostly past me leaving me to surf the back of the whitewater.   It definitely went better than my last surfing lesson though and made me excited for the next time I get a chance to try. The only complaint was that the surfing company was a bit over-zealous in their bookings leaving a third of us without boards! Br...

The rest of the week kayaking was not as adrenaline pumping as the first day (with one exception) but it was incredible. We had crystal clear water, pristine beaches, close encounters with wildlife, and very few people until the last day. We got up early everyday to take advantage of the calmer conditions on the water, but then we spent the afternoon alternating between swimming and napping, so no complaints from me. Our short paddle days meant we always got the best campsites, sometimes arriving before the previous night's occupants had even left! And our extra time with the kayaks meant we were never rushed. We could explore as little or as much as we wanted, watching out for the tides of course. One such exploration was into a tidal inlet where we were told stingrays hung out. I think we looked for about an hour (B and I both fell asleep drifting in our boat I think), but didn't see any. Eventually, we gave up and went to set up camp. I decided to have a go with the snorke...

  Let me just start by saying that I highly recommend Golden Bay Kayaks. The people were great, the boats were great, and coming around from Golden Bay at the northern end of the Abel Tasman park actually gave us the park mostly to ourselves for the first few days, which was AMAZING!    We discovered in the previous day's safety briefing that the four of us were actually quite lazy. Here I was thinking we were setting out on this hardcore holiday, when in reality the distance that we were going to take 5 days to cover, a family of four was going to do in 3 days. They had 2 teenagers though, so I blame their over zealousness on the lack of booze, because we were stocked! Oh, and a lack of hammock because, clearly, why would you paddle for 6 hours a day when you could paddle for 3 and then lay in the hammock for 3... There was a lot of hammock time on our trip, and I would just like to use this opportunity to give credit to Brian and Meghan for the best. pres...

We were staying 2 nights in Pohara, which I thought was the closest campsite to our kayaks. Turned out not to be true, but it was close enough. We spent the day lounging on the beach, swimming, lounging in the shade....  The only thing that we had to do was make it to our kayak safety briefing later that afternoon. It was fantastic. We were staying at a very commercial campsite, but we were fortunate to have it mostly to ourselves for our time there. Right before we left for our safety briefing, we did notice things starting to pick up. When we got back from our briefing, we thought the place was packed. I ended driving back by here a week later though, and we were mistaken. A week later it was unbelievably crowded! So much for a relaxing holiday at the beach... It is a very Kiwi thing to pack up everything, including the kitchen sink, and head to the beach. The fortresses that people had set up put our 2-man backpacking tent to shame. Pro our tent though,...