#5 New Zealand so far (part 1)

It’s been a hectic few weeks. I’ve traveled over 3000km, seen the northern most point of NZ, found a job and eaten a lot of pies!

As a result of this pie eating I have ended up neglecting this blog. Hopefully now that the dust has settled and pies digested I can keep the updates more regular.

As a good amount of time has now passed since arriving in the land of the sheep I have forced myself to sit down and put together a bit of a round up of events to date.

The image to the right is my rough route so far.

After arriving in Auckland on the 4th October I spent 10 days staying with some friends. This gave me sometime to sort life admin out, buy a van and see a bit of the city. I ended up buying a 2007 Mitsubishi L300 off a lovely dutch couple. They’d just spent the last year traveling the country and surfing.

To keep things brief I won’t bore you by detailing each days itinerary. I will instead give a broad overview.
From Auckland I went north up the west coast to the cape. On the way I spent one evening in Ahipara, home to Shipwreck Bay, made famous by the original surf film Endless Summer. I managed to bag a quick sunset session on some small, but glassy waves. It wasn’t properly doing it’s thing but still felt like a bucket list wave ticked off.

From there I pushed on to Cape Reinga. North of Ahipara there is pretty much one main road and not a whole lot of life along it. Now one negative of the van is that it has the aerodynamics of a brick. As such, I end up only getting about 300 miles to a tank. Around more populated areas this doesn’t matter too much but in the far north where there is a lack of fuel stations this can be an issue. In the end it worked out fine but it did require me to work out distances so that I didn’t get stranded in the middle of nowhere.

When I arrived at the Cape it was pretty bleak. There was a heavy fog and it was raining pretty hard. I couldn’t see anything. It had felt like a bit of a wasted trip. I wondered down to the lighthouse at the point all the same. As I arrived there the rain ceased and the fog began to lift. As the view materialised I was able to see the chaotic meeting point of the two seas, the Tasman and the Pacific ocean.

From there I headed a bit east to Spirits Bay to camp for the night. Here I had my first experience of a gravel track. As I turned off the main road, I should just call it the road as there wasn’t another that was paved, I was met by a grey dusty track that undulated back and forth, had marble like rock all over it and was bumpy enough to wash your clothes on and rattle a van to pieces. I was unsure of how long I would have to endure this torture, I was in a constant fear that either my suspension was going to give or my tires. In the end it went on for 15km. Along the way, having not seen another soul, I stopped in the middle of the track to get a photo, sure that I wasn’t about to meet another vehicle. No longer than 10 seconds after stopping, a school bus, of all vehicles, comes up behind me hooting it’s horn, evidently in the process of dropping kids back home after school. As I quickly tried and tuck into the side of the road it whizzed by at double the speed I had been going. What I have learnt is that It doesn’t matter how remote you think you are, you will almost certainly meet someone in this country.

The campsite turned out to be well worth the trip. I felt very much alone, isolated at the ends of the earth. That was until another camper turned up. In the end I was grateful they arrived as it was comforting to have company.

I then began the journey south, looping back down the east coast.
On the way stopping off in Paihia, seeing Waitangi Treaty Grounds (Where I felt very much like a tourist) and Russell.

On my way to Waipu I decided to take the ‘scenic route’ via Elliot Bay. What it turned out to be was 9 miles of gravel track with no views. I stopped off at Elliot Bay for 5 minutes then continued on.

I was heading to the Waipu area because of the surf. A swell was coming through and it seemed like a good place to catch it. I quite liked Waipu. I did find their obvious pride in their Scottish heritage quite funny though. Along streets there are tartan sign with names like Munro on, what they are for I have no idea. Also the highlight of the towns calendar is the annual Highland Games which is held at New Year. It felt strange seeing this as Scotland is 11,000 miles away. I had arranged to catch up with the dutch couple I bought the van off as they were also in the area to surf. We ended up camping at a DOC site right on Uretiti beach. It was an awesome site and it acted as a good base while surfing the surrounding area.The swell turned out to be even bigger then expected. It was pumping and I got smoked. A UK summer of little surf hadn’t helped my fitness one bit and I spent two sessions unable to even get out the back! Apparently it was up there as the swell of the year so far, double overhead and pretty clean. Some of the surfers were ripping. The east isn’t known for it’s big waves so when its on, people just drop work and get into the water. I stayed at Uretiti for 3 nights with the Dutch couple then bid them farewell as they departed for Indonesia, off to chase the waves. I continued on south as I had an event to get to.

I’m realising now that I am actually giving a pretty detailed summary. As to not skip through interesting events I think I am going to split this ‘brief’ summary into 2 parts. To be continued…