“Why is she crying, that movie is “epic” Leo is a stud, and sorry “babe” its real life. If you cant handle the heat, get out of the kitchen!”

We walked off the plane with a grin on our face. Unlike the majority of our trip, this leg, the New Zealand leg, actually began ahead of schedule. It was a bit of a fight, but some how, some way, the “tis the season” line worked in Brisbane. We avoided our 9-hour lay over and landed in Auckland 6 hours early. This was going to be a piece of cake. The sun was shining; it was warm, not skin melting off my body warm, but just ideal. To top it off, we were pretty sure Brock and Cait were going to be waiting for us once we picked up our bags and got through customs.
Picking up “our” bags turned out to be a little more of a process than we had planned. Waiting for our bags felt like an eternity. The thought of Brock possibly waiting all this time for us made me rather un easy. My bag came out first, and when I got it I told Derek I was going to go through so they new we had arrived. I’d meet him on the other side of the perforated glass. Soon after spotting Brock in his standard overly tight (he will argue other wise) v-neck shirt, boardies and thongs, I received a text from Derek. Like usual, it was rather charming and along the lines of “Hey asshole, thanks a lot for leaving me. My f&%king bag is lost and the baggage lady won’t help me because your not here.” Well… some how Derek managed to “woo” her, got through customs, met Brock and Cait, and our kiwi experience began.
I’ll let Derek go into more detail about Brock and Cait, but to say the least they did not disappoint us, not one bit.
Anyway, after a couple days with the Brock-Star, he rented us a car so we could trek down to Raglan and hopefully score some surf. We agreed to re unite in a couple of days and head up north together, but first, surf. It was summer, Raglan should be prefect. It was swell season and the weather should be on our side. Turned out it was swell season, top to bottom barrels, a million people in the water, truly an awesome day. Weather wise however, well, it was freaking freezing, and we had sent all of our warm cloths, and wetsuits home after South Africa.
We had to rent wetsuits. If you’ve never worn a wetsuit, they are a rather personal experience. They all fit different, and most importantly most people urinate in them. Derek was not thrilled to say the least. I did not care as much, as long as they kept us warm. Apparently Derek and I lost a few pounds, because the large wetsuits we rented were more like wizards gowns. We were not surfers entering the water but rather two new characters in a Harry Potter movie returning to Hogwartz. Loose and baggy, and when we paddled out, we each filled up like a balloon. I practically sank, and the water was “glacial”.
We were staying at Raglan backpackers. It was perfect, cheap and considered to be a surf hostel. We figured perfect, it will be just like Bali, just a new country. Wrong! Instead of being filled with surfers, it was filled with people “thinking” about surfing, a guy named Jake who enjoyed semi frozen red wine, and used the word “epic” in ever other sentence and a girl who could not handle the movie Blood Diamond. Rather than watching it, and the happy ending, she spent a half an hour crying in the courtyard while Jake comforted her. Well “Jake” I think you would agree with Derek when Derek said “Why is she crying, that movie is “epic” Leo is a stud, and sorry “babe” its real life. If you cant handle the heat, get out of the kitchen!”
NZ started out…well I guess perfect, we met up with Brock, scored some great surf, froze our butts off but surfed, and met some “epic” people. Two days later we headed back up north and to go to Brocks families place in the Keri Keri.