gizzy

Sun at last! and waves...

we arrived in Gisborne yesterday around noonish. After 3 long days of no sunshine we were stoked beyond belief. we were checking the very iffy forcast in New plymoth a few days back and decided to try our luck more to the north. The rain, 25ft seas and 30kt winds didn't look to promising. We drove from taranaki to Wangamata on the coramandal penninsula after going for a surf and hoped for better conditions and weather there...of course we awoke to the only thing worse than stormy and rainy, flat and rainy. After I pouted for a little bit and taylor told me to deal with it we headed to Mt manganui. Score! 40kt winds, sand blowing every which way, rain, freeeeeezing and no waves. We decided we'd driven enough for one day and set up camp there. We went for a little hike onto this little island out cropping thingy and taylor said the words "wouldnt it be funny if there were waves on the other side of this island" hmmm ya taylor it would be. as we rounded the tip, lo and behold there were waves, classic. The quick hustle to get the there was very quick to be short and we got some fun waves. The search for a place to sleep that night was endless. finally we found one after almost getting the van stuck in mud, which i had to push out, which ended up in me landing face first in it from pushing to hard and the van got loose. good thing it was raining...yesterday we woke up and decided to make the trip to gisborne from the bay of plenty. More problems, i drove the van for three hours in overdrive and we kept comenting on the weird noise it was makeing, and we almost ran out of gas half way but despite it all we made it and got some waves. We didn't wanna show up and distract wiley from his work so we tried to be super secret about being at wainui (the house he's at is on the beach there) plus he's sick and cant surf. An hour and a half into our session some kid rode down onto the beach on a bike and saw me get barreled and started yelling and waving his hands. I paddled back out to taylor and said hey doesn't that look like wiley? after some deliberation we decided it was and went in. We were all stoked and I think he was over joyed to be reunited with friends and family. he suddenly seemed healthy and well again. We got invited to dinner that night by his woofing family and feasted. A goooood night for sure. Wiley says hi to all and so do we. The Skateboarding pics are from N P when there weren't waves and the others are from the woof house and our feast! more on the way...

New Plymoth

We're sitting here in the library right now because its to cold, windy and miserable to surf. We made our way down to new plymoth to try to catch the swell which has proved more minimal than expected...tomorrow's looking better. So far after getting the van, we drove down to raglan and gave it a check and it was tiny. We've had some good, bad, and funny things happen to us so far... first of all getting the van for so cheap and everything we wanted aka diesel and a bed was amazing. it definatly got our spirits high to start. Within ten minutes, I was on the wrong side of the road. We've gotta remember not to make american left hand turns here! Luckily there wasn't anyone coming our way that time. After laughing for 10 minutes, we were on our way. After surfing terrible raglan, we headed into hamilton to go to the temple. I went with a group of maori's to do baptism's which was epic. truely an experience. Another cool thing was that we got to go to the last stake conference of the temple view ward that would be held in the church college here since demolition is set for the beginning of next year. After church we snuck into the stake picture to be forever remembered as members of the temple view stake. Stoked. On the way out we decided to ghetto rig some board racks inside the car so we could put some above and have extra room under. As we were raiding a pile of wood in the maintenance yard, the janitor drove in, locked the gate, and went into his little house in the yard to sleep. After being locked in there for 3 and a half hours with no luck of waking the big maori fella, we found someone with a key. Off to new plymoth! We stayed that night in a little town just north of NP... Stars like you cant believe. New Zealand is truely a magical place. The next morning on our way to check the surf at fitzroy, we stopped by the petrol station to fill up as we were running low. After pulling up and paying for gas, taylor ran into the bathroom. Since our van is diesel and we were at a petrol pump I ran in to ask the lady to switch us to the next pump over. After waiting a while for the lady to come to the desk, taylor got out and we walked outside...to find that she had filled our tank for us. With Petrol! Now we had $30 of petrol in our tank and we couldn't start our engine. We used a pump to get all of it out and two hours later we arived at fitzroy, to late to surf. We're hoping for waves tomorrow but if not its off to coramandal to find surf there. There's a huge storm coming in on thursday and we don't wannna be around for it. Enjoy the pics!

Van Search!

taylor and I headed off early for auckland to look for a van which immediatly seemed like an impossible task. we literally searched every hostel in auckland for a van checking every bullitin board and asking everyone we could talk to where to look. we were feeling a little hopeless when taylor spotted a sick one in a car park. we read the sign and saw 4750, way out of our price range, but the pure beauty of this beast made us write down the number. we called and offered our 3000 cash and he said call back...an hour and a half later we were driving the freaking amazing van of our dreams.

day one

Today pretty much sucked...We flew 13 hours to find out the sydney airport was closed due to fog so we had to land in brisborne until the fog cleared. After this delay, we rushed to our flight to auckland which luckily had been delayed also. After an entire day and night with little to no sleep, we waited for our bags...that didn't come. Now we're at the hostel hoping it comes in. We just wanna surf. tomorrow we'll look for a van and hopefully pick up our stuff. Its coldish here but pretty beautiful. THE GRASS IS SO GREEN! We'll upload pics later. Hi mom and dad from both of us