Aotearoa: First Post

22/06/11

Just shy of a week here in NZ & we haven’t been surfing yet. We’ve got lots of other, worthy, things done but hopefully a surf can be managed tomorrow.

Back in Heathrow, heading through passport control & leaving my parents behind really got to me. They’re so helpful & supportive & all the thanks they get from me is sarcasm & then abandonment.

The journey went smoothly enough with a ride on an A380 Super-Jumbo, a visit to Singapore airport’s butterfly garden & a ‘welcome home’ (!) from the immigration officer. A couple of minibus rides & we’re at ‘Maui Direct’ & being shown our fleet of 6 vans by Les, a nice old Kiwi who insists on calling Anna ‘Mrs Darwin’!

We pick a van, load up & point ourselves South & we’re motoring to Raglan. Brilliant! There’s the same feeling of, ‘this country’s a bit half-finished’ as I got the first time I visited but I know it’ll soon pass just as it did last time.

Coffee & pie at Ngaruawahia where even the name hasn’t had its rough edges trimmed strengthens the feeling of a poor choice of country. Its a village with the main North-South road running through it & local boy-racers cruising past showing off their badly modified old jap import cars. Try & stay awake while waiting for Anna to buy us bedding at ‘Warehouse’ (a chain of large sells-everything type shops) & then we head over the hill in the dark to Raglan pursued by an amazingly big, low, full moon. Get some supplies at ‘Four Square’ (Like a Spar, & the biggest shop in Raglan) & then its off to the campsite & BANG I’m asleep!

We left London on Tuesday & now its Friday, how did that happen? Never mind, we’re in Raglan & its wicked! Find a house, choose internet companies, get driving license, meet Dougal & Lucy, incorporate PiwiWiwi Ltd, get phones, open bank accounts, be jet-lagged, climb a hill, walk on the beach & the week’s almost gone.

Tomorrow we must surf!