Landing in the long white cloud.

After an amazing nine days in Fiji the boys have landed in New Zealand. Fiji exceeded all of our expectations and we owe a huge part of that to Teh at Go Surf Fiji and Mama of Mama’s Tropic of Capricorn Resort. Thank you – Vinaka. (http://www.adrenalinfiji.com/activities/surfing, http://www.hostelbookers.com/hostels/fiji/nadi/25128/)

Loading up the plane for New Zealand

We arrived in New Zealand on Sunday night and spent that evening and Monday exploring the city of Auckland. Dex and I did a quick hike on an island across from the city called Rangitoto before meeting Mike via ferry on the North Shore. The view of the city from the top of Rangitoto was amazing and Dex and I made recorded time to the summit in order to catch the bi-hourly ferry back.

Auckland is a beautiful city and in so many ways it reminded me of Canada. The parallels between Auckland and Vancouver are striking as both are very clean with water and mountains that frame the fore and backgrounds.

Auckland at night. Although I said the city reminds me of Vancouver the CN Tower like structure helps Auckland do a pretty good Toronto impression as well.  

The view from Rangitoto.

Dex on the ferry.

On Tuesday morning we left our Auckland hostel to go pick up our camper van. For the next month this will be our home as we will be traveling New Zealand’s North and South Island in search of great waves and good hikes. Our camper van, or what was to be a van, is pretty sweet. Initially we had rented the basic van model however when we arrived at the depot we realized that there was no way that all of us and our surfboards were going to fit for a month in such a tiny space. The people at the camper van depot we very accommodating and upgraded us to a full on RV for only a few dollars more. We have a full kitchen, microwave and even satellite TV – score!

The one problem with our new pad is that it is stick shift and I have only driven standard a handful of times. For now Mike is doing the driving but hopefully I can learn as we go.

Dex with our new ride.