Blog 20

It’s been a while since Sonia dropped me of at the airport. I picked up my car and headed for Raglan, where I arrived around 9 pm. It was great to see Anne again. She and Dean share their house with another couple: Ilse and Maurice: Dutchies.
The next morning Anne, Ilse and I went for a surf at Ruapuke: a 40 minute drive on a dirt road, but worth it, since there were no waves at Raglan beach. Ruapuke was not big small, but we had some fun waves. After the surf we had a yoga session on the deck.
After dinner we went to the restaurant/ bar where Ilse and Maurice work. There was an open mic evening and Dean put my name down… So I to go on stage and sing 3 songs.. Thanks to some other musicians I kind of had a band going and it was actually really fun to be on stage and have a sing, although I was quite nervous (as always).
Friday morning we had a bit of a sleep inn and, as the waves were lousy, I just spend some time on the internet to kind of plan my trip a bit more. In the afternoon, Anne, Katy (a American friend of Anne) and I went to the Bridal view falls: a really pretty waterfall.
The plan was to jump in there for a swim, but you weren’t really allowed: they were building some platform over there, and the water was kind of freezing… not really a nice day to swim.. It was nice though to get out for a bit. For the rest I had a very lazy day. I cooked some dinner and went to bed quite early.
The next day there were some waves again: a soft top longboard session at Wainui beach (hypes of waves) with Anne and Dean in the afternoon and in the evening a short board session with Maurice and Laurens (a guy from Belgium, colleague of Maurice and Ilse). That evening surf was quite heavy: people were barrelling and the rips were pulling you out.. not really my kind of surf.
I cooked a last warm meal (leaving the next morning) and we had a mellow evening. On Sunday we went for an early morning surf and a coffee later on. I left Raglan around 2 pm…
Definitely go back there one day!

I headed for the Coromandel: hot water beach: if you dig a hole there at low tide, you’ve got your own hot water pool!! When I arrived there around 6pm the waves were looking amazing: barrels and all… I went in, but the waves were pretty big and hollow. It was great to see all the guys surfing though.
That evening I slept in the car. There were some other people sleeping there as well: 2 girls in a tent and two guys in a caravan, so it was safe. The next morning me and the 2 guys went for a surf and, since the swell dropped a bit, I caught some awesome waves: left and right!! That made me really happy. After that we did some yoga together for about an hour and a bodysurf to fresh up afterwards. I decided to follow the guys to Cathedral Cove, a beautiful beach, where we had a swim. After the walk back (takes about 30 minutes to get there) we were very keen on surfing again, so we checked out Whangamata, where we had some fun little waves for about 1 ½ hrs. After some groceries, we headed for Opourtere: a really pretty beach, but a 10 minute walk through the forest to get there. The guys were keen to go for a run and I just followed. We ran about 5 km and then I did a bit of a workout by myself, while the guys do dome more running. A swim after that and then we were kind of hungry, so we had some ‘nacho’s and beans à la Jones. We went to bed shortly after that (around 10 pm) and the next morning, before leaving we had a short walk on the beach. No more waves.. Hayden and Gaz went north/ west, while I was planning on going to Taupo, so we had to say our goodbye’s…
That day I went to Mount Manganui again to see if Rasmus was interested in climbing the mountain near Taupo, but he had other plans, so I was by myself again, but.. not for long…