Hobbits Don't Surf

In Australia we'd talked to some people who had toured New Zealand recently, so we knew our first stop already: Piha. A few hours from Auckland, it's where all surfer tourists go first. We drove along a craggy coastline that reminded us a lot of Big Sur in California. It was nice after Australia where the beach is usually hidden behind 12 foot tall bushes or else housing developments. However the quality of the surf was noticeably poorer! We admired all the poor souls fighting the chop and whitewater for a bit, checked out the surfshops, and then found a nice parking spot for the night near the beach. The campervan next door was occupied by a very nice couple from the south of France, who run a food stand during the summer there, and travel every winter. Wow were we ever jealous! They had been travelling for awhile and gave us even more tips on where to go in NZ. Then we got asked to move on by a ranger or cop or something, who said that the people in the nice beach house across the street had complained. Apparently this is an unusual thing to happen in NZ and had only happened once so far to the French couple. We contritely offered to move the paid camping sight, but the ranger immediately clarified that no no, we just needed to move from this particular spot. Just go to the next parking lot up the beach! So we did that, but this lot unfortunately had a gate. When a ranger came to close the gate at 10pm, we thought we were in trouble again, but no, she just wanted to make sure we were ok to stay until she opened the gate again at 8am!

We were happy to sleep in, so that was no trouble! In the morning we headed to the beach, where Sam and the French guy went out to a peak further out, and the French girl and I attempted to stay on the inside. However there was a lot of current and chop and pretty soon the waves were well overhead even on the inside. I caught my first wave with no trouble and felt like a pro, but after that I just got pummeled, so we went inside to surf whitewater. The ocean was fairly cold, but apparently unseasonably warm for NZ, and Sam stayed out for awhile. Then the poor French couple had to head back to Auckland to deal with a traffic ticket, and we were on to the next stop in the surfing tour of NZ, Raglan, surfing capital of the North Island's east coast.

On our way, I think we had our first experience of meat pie in NZ - delicious! Sorry Australia but it was way better and cheaper than any we had there. The landscape and cool temperatures continued to remind us of California, in around December, and this made us a bit homesick. The drive to Raglan was pretty short. We looked at the messy beach surf, and decided it was time to find a place to sleep. Unfortunately Raglan, being NZ's equivalent of Byron, didn't allow sleeping at the beach park, but we talked to a guy in a caravan who said to head out of town a bit on the unsealed road and sleep out there. The unsealed road was rough and narrow, making all previous drives look like freeways, and we wondered how on earth huge caravans got out there. We soon came to a little lookout packed with campervans, and decided to keep driving...and driving. The coast was so beautiful it was hard to stop! But we couldn't believe such a beautiful drive was not packed with tourists. We later learned that it was really pretty standard for NZ, ho hum, crashing ocean, steep rocky coastline, craggy green hills, yawn. Anyway we eventually found a spot next to, you guessed it, a sheep farm, where we camped in the freezing wind. We were starting to miss Australia.

In the morning there was a beautiful sunrise, I would have taken a picture if I could have felt my fingers. Oh well. We drove to one of the surf shops where Sam got to talking with the owner about shaping boards. Typical Kiwis, when we mentioned that we needed to buy wetsuits, they soon offered their old ones to us for dirt cheap. They also offered to let us park on their property to sleep. Then we went to check out the town, where a local told us that the best place for fish and chips was the shack down at the campground. We headed down there and were amazed at the cheap prices! We got a huge order of fries and two orders of fish for only $10 NZ, which is like $6 US. We were so proud that we found this great place. Burgers and shakes were only a few dollars too. Of course later we learned that fish and chips are good and cheap almost everywhere! The only annoyance is that, just like Australia, ketchup and tartar sauce all cost extra. Luckily we cruise around in a campervan and have our own supply.

Happy to have wetsuits, we surfed down at the main beach, since the point at the boat harbor wasn't breaking. I gave up on being pummeled by beach break fast, but had fun catching whitewater for awhile. Thanks to my new suit I wasn't cold, but I was about to puke fish and chips everywhere, so I got out of the water. Sam soon followed and we were both starting to want hot showers, so we decided to just pay to stay at the campground. Caravan parks in NZ (and Australia too) are for the most part super nice, with clean bathrooms, hot showers and laundry that are usually free, TV rooms, kitchens, sometimes even pool tables and hot tubs. They are good value too - usually less than $30 NZ for two people. For comparison, two beds in a shared dorm at a backpackers usually runs at least $50 NZ for two people! Campervan are the way to go!

The next morning we woke up and oh man - a swell! Sam raced down to the boatramp only to find the conditions were great but there were already 30 tourists in the water, of which only about 2 knew how to surf, plus a few locals. There was no way I was going out, so I sat on the beach and watched Sam fight for waves and dodge heads. He had a good time commiserating with the locals about all these dumb tourists paddling and not even catching waves. However by this point his wetsuit only had one arm, no legs, and Sam was freezing! So he came in pretty quick, feeling very frustrated with NZ surf in general. We decided to get out of crazy Raglan. Next stop: Mt. Doom!