Ka mau te wehi

Should I go Right..........

Or should I go Left......????

I woke at 0600 this morning and was geeted by a dull overcast (and very dark) day,but after a power packed Banana,Kiwifruit and yoghurt shake I was off into the (still) darkness.

0640 I arrived at Muriwai beach and as I rubbed the remaining sleep from my eyes I could just make out a messy 2ft of SW swell and a offshore breeze.....

After checking out the other side of Maori Bay I returned back to Muriwai and to my surprise the swell had re kicked and combined with the offshore and the in coming tide,it was looking like it was improving.0735 I was in........"HELL the waters cold" and the chilli bite removed all doubt that in fact it IS almost winter.........the passing comment last night from my wife was ringing true in my head......"Ya crazy bugger it wil be freezing"
But that was soon forgotten as I started paddling out.
Tangaroa (God of the sea) was sending the odd 3-4ft bomb thru to put a halt to my fibble attempts to get thru the impact zone and to the relative safety out the back.

But this was a day that Id have to work for and while I tried my best to duck dive under,I was caught and I knew straight away that I had snapped my legrope and as I surfaced I could just see my board racing riderless in towards the shore.........BUGGER I thought then as another West coast special freight train came pounding over me.......as I realised to myself that the 300m swim/body surf in wasnt going to be easy.
On "FINALLY" making it to shore tired and with my pride "slightly" bruised I thought Id pack it in and as I headed up the beach I met up with local icon and "lad" Graeme.
After we exchanged our own special greetings he said to me "Bro you cant call it quits......come on bro give it another nudge!"
Well for the next hour and a half it couldnt have been any better,there were waves for Africa and if you got abit sick of going left......then you just went right,we called each other into wave after wave......STOKED!!!!!

Rotorua or Bust

Sulphur Point and Hokey Pokey Ice Cream at the Agrodome





Rotorua was great and we bused down to Rotorua via Waitomo Caves (which was cool) chotto (a little) worried about Mana inside the cave as it was PITCH black and we were on a boat so we kinda expected her to be frightened.But Mana was the perfect little girl and she was taupri (held on tight) to me as we glided thru the inky blackness to the Glow worm grotto where we all gazed up at the ga-zillion of little blue/green lights and Mana announced "ohhhh kawaii desho...'(pretty isn't it) then to everyone's surprise and enjoyment she softly sang the first few lines of twinkle twinkle little star (the Japanese version)

Ahhhhh how bout that then.....I think Dad wasn't the only thing glowing in the caves.

We jumped back on the bus again for the drive to Rotorua with a stop at the Agrodome to take part in the farm tour which involves getting onto a trailer towed by a tractor (Red of course) thru fields of the good ole NZ sheep and cattle all of various colours,shapes and breeds,then onto the deer,goats,emus,ostrich,ducks geese and other farm animals.Once again Mana really enjoyed but the friskiness of some of the animals charging thru in the hope of getting a feed was a wee bit too much for her.
We finished off with a sheep shearing display or as Mana put it a sheep haircut,but before we got back on the bus it was time to indulge in a NZ tradition and have a Hokey Pokey icecream.
Our driver dropped us off at the L/Plaza were the staff greeted us with open arms well not quite it was more of 'Oil your down here every second day.....why on earth would you want to come here on holiday????"
Our room was 605 and with Mana in charge of the key (if you could see her strutting about like a cowboy with a gun on her hip....very cute) She managed to find our room number (after abit of help) we opened the door to revile 2 double beds and a huge bath .

We decided to head out to sample the night life of Roto-Vegas and ended up at Yamoto restaurant.
Ive known the owner Zenji for along time and watched his kids grow up,even seen them as extras in NZ made movie "The last Samurai" with Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe.He has a very special photo on the wall of his kids with Tom on the movie set in Taranaki.
The food was simply oshii and Keiko and I had "Big eyes" and in true Kiwi fashion we cleaned up everything......including the 2 beers and warm sake.

Back at the hotel I wanted to watch the semi final of the Rugby Super 14 between Canterbury and well some other less important team (hehe) and I didn't want to disturb my girls so I thought Id head off to the lounge bar of the hotel.Mana asked if I would bath her first so I did and then she asked if she could watch the rugby with me I was kinda "WOW me and my girl watching TV together.......well OK we set ourselves up with a small drink of water for her,a extremely large beer for me pillows arranged and blankets set up and........guess who fell asleep?My little girls battery was FLAT.......

The next morning we brunched at Relish Cafe and I have to say that there all day breakfast was pretty dam good,then we wandered down to the Lake Fronts weekend market.....of course with batteries full charged Mana headed for the Bouncy Castle and for a mere $3 she could jump,yell and scream until the cows come home.
We had a 2 hour wait till our transport back to Auckland was due to pick us up so we headed down to the lounge bar to fill in some time.Rosalie (staff) said shell turn on the big screen TV for us to which I said can I put on a DVD?? Sure she said so 2 minutes flat the normally relaxing ambiance of the "grown up" Mallard bar was rocking to the sounds of "High 5" A very relaxing time for both Mum and Dad.
Graeme (GBJ) picked us up a little later for the 2hour 30 minutes drive back to Auckland and Mana FINALLY fell asleep at the 2 hours 25 minute mark .

A great time had by all

Just waiting

Having a play around to see what I can and cant do .

Im sitting at work at the mo waiting for the traffic to die down for the hour long slug drive home and as you would expect......Im on the net and I stumbled on a image my good friend Kosuke took on his web site .....typical it was the 1 day I couldnt make it out with him.
I have tomorrow off so Im heading out for a surf first thing in the morning to hopefully get into some of the West coasts finest .

Kia ora

Kia ora ,Thank you Maya ,abs-so-lutley awesome to catch up with you today you have inspired me to get my A into G......watch this space (but not too closely)