Thanksgiving Kiwi Style

After landing safely from our skydiving experience, we headed back to the north island for our last week in New Zealand. We free camped in the town of Nelson, woke up and headed to Picton to catch the ferry. As soon as we were on the north island, we headed straight up the west coast to the Packakarikari Holiday Park for the night. Another night and morning of rain, so we decided to jump right back into our spaceship and head for New Zealand's surf highway that would take us to New Plymouth. Unfortunately the rain followed and the surf was non-existant. We crashed another rain soaked night at the Fitzroy Holiday Park, on the north side of New Plymouth.

Next it was off to Raglan, home to one of the longest left breaking waves in the world. Once in Raglan, we found an excellent spot for our spaceship at Solscape. The place had amazing views at a decent price and best of all, they are an eco resort. Ryan was able to surf Manu Bay that afternoon, although the storm still was leaving it's mark on the water and the waves weren't at their prime. The next morning was a different story; 4-7' peeling lefthanders made for a fun surf session:



After our two nights in Raglan, we drove back to Auckland to spend Thanksgiving and our last days in NZ with our good friends Danny and Jaime. We arrived to their house welcomed by the comforting holiday aromas of turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, glazed carrots and stuffing (Jaime was hard at work when we got there...thanks Jaime!) We were thankful to have a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner but especially to have good friends to celebrate with.


The next morning, with bellies still full of turkey, the four of us headed to Bayly's Beach on the northwest coast. We were hoping for some nice weather but instead ran into another rainstorm. We made the best of it by playing games in the house we rented and when the rain did finally stop, we took the car for a ride on the beach (this is one of the longest beaches you can actually drive your car on in NZ, and Danny had a lot of fun trying to get us all sick by doing donuts in the sand).


The next morning we headed over to the east coast to the beautiful Bay of Islands. We got a campsite right on the water at the Beachside Holiday Park in Paihia. The holiday park had a dinghy for rent and since Danny had brought some fishing gear along, renting it was a no-brainer. Next thing we knew, we were catching quite a bit of red snapper, not more than a few hundred meters from our campsite. We caught just enough of the size limit (and a bunch that we had to throw back) that fish tacos were in order for dinner.



The next morning we went for a nice hike around the bay and then it was off to do a little more fishing. This time we fished right from the rocks and caught a ton of little fish. Unfortunately, none of them were big enough to keep.


After we had our fishing fix, it was back to Auckland for the next few days until our flight to Sydney. We did get the chance to do some last minute wine tasting and visit the gannet colony at Muriwai Beach.



Now we cross the Tasman Sea to our next destination: The Great Down Under, Australia. We can't wait!

For more photos of New Zealand, click below to go to our Picasa page:

New Zealand