Sunday, February 14, 2010

NZ Road Trip.

So after six fuel tanks, three water tanks two gas bottles, so many games of Uno and a bunch of K’s Little Em and I the “happy campers” are back from our epic road trip all over New Zealand. We flew into Auckland in the North Island and zig zagged our way to Christchurch in the South Island. We didn’t really have a plan other than that we hired a three birth camper just for that extra comfort and head room and that we had to be in Christchurch in thirteen days.

We headed off down towards the east coast in search of Cathedral Cove on the Coromandel Peninsula which I must say is well worth the walk its absolutely beautiful. Em and I spent about three days cruising around the Peninsula bush walking, site seeing and hunting down epic bakeries before my surf froth got a little too much due to the lack of waves and the hectic onshore I decided to pack up and head straight for Raglan.

Em fell in love with Raglan and once again I was definitely not disappointed with what Rags had to offer. The points were three to six foot for most of the time that we were there and on the last day a buddy of mine that I met last year picked me up and took me on a boat ride from Manu bay to this insane three to four foot beach break that was pumping in the middle of nowhere and it was just us, unbelievable.

We then made our way down the coast surfing, tramping, and discovering freshwater streams to New Plymouth. New Plymouth is this nook around a volcano with many sick reefies all around it with just about all wind protection; let’s just say I had a lot of fun at this joint. It’s about Day six now and our pre book ferry from Wellington to Picton sails tomorrow so little Em and I are on the road again punching it down the west coast. The ferry ride from Wellington to Picton is amazing. You sail up these sounds that are surrounded by these massive rolling hills and are quit a site.

Our original plan was to just spend the next six days driving down the coast from Picton to Christchurch until we realised that that would only take about five hours so after chatting with a few locals and a couple of other travellers we replanned and headed up towards the Able Tasman National parks the across to West Port and then down and across the Lewis Pass where they bread the biggest and wildest swarms of sandfly/ mossy/marchfly I have ever seen.

We then shot back up to Kikora to see some seals that are really just big lazy staffy look a like’s that are everywhere. From Kikora we drove down the coast to another Peninsula east of Christchurch and spent our last few days at this little French fishing village called Akaroa. We ate fresh salmon straight from the boat that was cook to perfection on the BBQ right there on the wharf, ate delicious ice cream and tramped up massive mountains to burn it all off.

This road trip was two weeks well spent and if you get the chance to do a road trip like this in NZ you will not regret it. Here are a few pic’s from our travels.








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