Exploring the North Island (pt 2)

Note: all the photos from our trip can be found on our gallery here.

Having checked out the surfing and New Plymouth in general, and, having slept in the car the night before, we decided to treat ourselves to a nice dip at the Taranaki Mineral Baths. Very Alkaline, very hot and very relaxing, we spent a half hour working the kinks incurred from our previous night's makeshift camp. A warm shower after that and we were ready to hit the road.

The drive from New Plymouth to Raglan was largely uneventful, punctuated only once by a stop in Pio Pio for some of the best soft ice cream and frozen yogurt I'd ever had. Not sure if this is the norm in New Zealand / elsewhere, but the machine they had was fascinating. Basically it was a giant funnel where you put vanilla ice cream and frozen berries (The shop was part of a blueberry, rasberry and strawberry farm). Then, what can only really be described as a conical drill bit, sized to fit perfectly into the funnel was lowered into the machine and turned on. Obviously very high torque, it ground the berries into the ice cream and extruded it out the bottom into the waiting cone. It was my first time seeing such a device and the results were delicious.

Now I'd booked our stay in Raglan at a Campsite / Eco Retreat called Solscape. The main appeal was that they'd made their cabins out of what they called "cabooses" and the photos and views made it look quite nice. When we got there, we quickly realized that the "Eco" part of the retreat was what their main focus was. Not a bad thing, just not what we expected. We checked into our cabin / caboose: in reality it was an older 30s-40s style train car that had been cut in two and closed up with a proper wall. Great idea, well executed.

However, I'd accidentally booked us a cabin in the middle of the campsite, which turned out to be quite close to the common areas and the outdoor bbq. We went into town for some dinner and then settled in for the night. It was at this point that the fact that this was also a Youth Hostel became abundantly apparent. The partying started around 9 and didn't stop for quite some time. I had earplugs (thank god) so I ended up passing out fairly quickly.

This is where i'd usually list out the things I didn't like about the place. I'm not going to bother. It wasn't for us, but I can definitely see the appeal for many people so I'll leave it at that and move on with our weekend.

Waking up bright and early, we had some breakfast and headed out to the river mouth to check on the wind. Forecast was to get 13-15knots from the West, perfect for Raglan. The reason Raglan is such a kitesurfing destination is that it has a very strong current in the outgoing tide. This compensates for the lighter winds and makes for marble smooth water on which to kite.

Unfortunately, the wind didn't read the forecast and decided to move SW instead and becalmed the river mouth. I bumped into a traveling Kitesurfing instructor there that I'd first met in Wellington and he and some other tourists chatted up one of the locals to find out where to go. With the info at hand, we all headed out to Aotea. It shares many of the same characteristics as Raglan, though it's harder to get to and doesn't have as friendly a launch spot.

View Raglan in a larger map

The blue route is the one we took. It was an hour of gravel roads and windy passages through the hillsides and farm country. Yet again I thanked the excellent engineers at Subaru for building such a fantastic AWD system into our Legacy.

Once we got there however, it was worth it. A nice wind was blowing through the river mouth, perfect direction and to top it off we met some really nice kite surfers from Auckland who were down for the weekend. They'd kited this spot previously and had all the local knowledge needed. So off we went hiking down the waterline to a decent launch spot. In the end there was 5-6 of us out on the water.

The red kite on the left is me. The wind was dropping a bit so I decided to rig up a larger kite. I was obviously a little excited and rushed the setup and didn't notice a small hole in the canopy of my kite. Launched the kite, got back out into the water and things were going great until I got to the other side of the estuary, where one of the other kiters noticed that was the hole getting bigger. I managed to get back to the launch area (which was about a km from the other side where we'd been riding) and after a rather graceless landing saw the extent of the damage:

I think it was about this point that the wind took pity on me and picked up another 3 or 4 knots which allowed me to go back out on my smaller kite and finish the day in style.

The tide was coming back in, the sun was setting and I'd had a great day of kiting in conditions I'd never seen in Wellington



To be continued yet again....

Finally Exploring the North Island.

You'd think, having been in the country more than a year, that we'd have become experts of at least the north island by now? You'd think... But in actuality, other then a few road trips with friends and family (Napier, Hamilton and Pauanui) we really haven't gone off roadtripping.

First, I've got to say, I love road trips. I love driving, winging it and seeing parts of the country you don't see from a plane.

Our plan was fairly simple. Carly got back from a Montessori conference on Tuesday, we leave Tuesday night with an eventual goal of getting to Raglan. Known for its surfing since at least the 60's (there's a famous american surf movie called The Endless Summer that is filmed in part there) and in recent times has become a Kitesurfing destination as well: It's got a strong outgoing tide current that makes for smooth flat water and some fast riding. In fact, one of the large Kite / Parasail manufacturers, Ozone, moved their offices from France to Raglan.

We didn't really have any other plans. We wanted to make it somewhere that had diving for Carly and see parts of the country we'd missed throughout our travels.

Fate had a slightly different plan for us though. BEE, our trusty Legacy, had been having a bit of a bad month, having had a failed MAF and an alternator on the fritz. I'd just finished replacing the alternator when I lightly scraped the front tire on Tuesday morning. With a loud hiss, the sidewall of the tire cracked open. As I was on my way to the Kapiti coast with my friend R. (who was already in the car) we decided to deal with it on Wednesday, delaying our departure.

Tuesday night we also discovered that our dryer had kicked the can, with a full load of wet laundry in it. Not an auspicious beginning to our trip!

Wednesday morning, we slapped the spare on the car, drove to Petone where Carly had found a laundry and I knew of a tireshop with a quick turnaround. By 12:30 we were packed and on the road!

Our first stop was Foxton Beach. I'd had a few adventures trying to Kite there before, but this was the day. A beautiful 20 knot NW wind was blowing through a huge river mouth with flat water, good company (I was kiting with The Wind Warrior and a friend of his) and a beautiful sun. We kited until sundown, packed up and headed back to The Wind Warrior's place for coffee and a bit of a social call.

We hit the road around 7, shooting to get to New Plymouth, find a campsite or holiday park and spend the night. TWW had mentioned that the Women’s Surf Festival and ASP Dream Tour was being hosted there and it would be worth the trip to check out some of the action. What we didn't immediately realize was this would mean there'd be 0 vacancies at any of the parks, motels or hotels.

about an hour and a 1/2 before we arrived in New Plymouth we started trying to find a room. No luck. Once we got to the city, we decided that since we had some camping gear in the car, we might as well find a quiet corner and do some real "car camping". So we pulled into the parking lot for Fitzroy Harbour around 10:30 and, re-arranging our baggage, dropped our sleeping bags in the back of the wagon and slept relatively well! Next time we do this we'll make sure to put the kitesurfing boards on the roof, but really, it's about 6 feet long, perfectly flat, and, with an air mattress and sleeping back, was better then expected!

The next morning, after exploring New Plymouth, we decided to go check out some of the surfing action:

To be continued...

His name is MO

Its been a while hasn't it.

Well here is something exciting ^^ at least from my perspective.
I have a car....I can hear you saying "what?"
I've always been a bus person, its easy, you can sleep, read, daydream and let someone else deal with gas, maintenance and parking. However, with the recent move to Ngaio from Island Bay (I suppose we should have blogged that) my commute to school increased.

BTW here is a gallery of our new home. The commute in the morning went from 20 minutes to 45 minutes, but the afternoon commute home went from 20 minutes to 1:20h (1:00h if i get lucky on connections). I did it for a month and a bit and while i could continue to do it there was a lot of talk of getting me a second car.

The second car also lets me get out of Ngaoi on the weekends to do my own thing when Blaise takes Bee (the 1st car) off to kite surf. In general the freedom is awesome, I take scuba gear in mine and do my thing, he fills his with kite gear and heads out in the opposite direction.

After some initial shopping it came down to the following: small, electric locks and windows, AC, foldable back seats, good gas mileage (oops sorry petrol mileage) and cute...yes that last one was mine.

Shopped around for a bit, trademe, dealers etc and finally found a nice dealer where the man showing the cars spoke to me and actually let me lead the conversation. Huzzah! Ladies don't buy from a dealer that won't talk to you and keeps answering all your questions to the man.

So what did we end up with, everything we wanted and more ^^
Meet MO.


I named him after the character from the animated movie WALL-E. The grill made me think of him. That's his picture beside my MO. Was it geeky and girly, yes, yes it was. His name is MO.

One of the Little Things I like about NZ.

I walk around barefoot a LOT now. After a good day at the beach, the last thing I want to do is slap on some shoes. I typically will be wearing sandles, but they will inevitably get covered in sand and grit, so, embracing my new found kiwidom, I do without.

I've been to grocery stores, restaurants, bars, shops, gas stations and even the bank barefoot. I'm certainly not the only one either; most weekends I see a good number of adults walking around sans-souliers.

From speaking to Carly, it's a battle in the schools to get kids to wear shoes at all! I know whenever we're out about town, there's a 50 / 50 chance that anyone under about the age of 12 will be shoeless.

It's oddly liberating to be honest, and there's certainly no stigma that I've seen around it, especially on a bright sunny day in the beach towns :) Of course, I'm pretty oblivious when it comes down to it.

Our Latest Insectine Visitor

About two weeks ago, while watching TV at night, I looked out the window and promptly freaked out. I saw something. Large. Flying just outside our kitchen window trying to get in to the light.

Got closer and realized it was actually a moth, about the size of a bat, pink, and very fuzzy. So, not terrifying, but definitely out of the ordinary. It took us a little while to find what it was, but we've done so: it was an Emperor Gum Moth. Imported from Australia, these guys grow to a wingspan of about 15 cms, have soft feathery antennae and are generally considered to be relatively harmless to New Zealand.

So here's the wiki entry for them:

Opodiphthera eucalypti

Here's some photos found on the internet about them. Turns out they are kind of cute.

The Ritual

The smell of neoprene mixes with the warm coffee I've just brewed. It's 8:30 and I'm driving up the Coastal Highway heading to Waikanae again. It's become a weekend tradition; wake up early on a Saturday or Sunday, load the car up with gear, get a quick breakfast and hit the road.

Kitesurfing has become a big part of my life. It's been just under a year since my first lesson. Since then, I've gone out 20+ times. Rain, shine, winter, summer so long as the wind's blowing, I head out. In the last 2 months I've really hit my stride. Confidence is up, I'm developing a style and some good endurance. I've gone from 2 to 3 kites, increasing the wind range I'm equipped to deal with to 12-40knots.

I even had my first crazy wind experience, heading out to tackle 30+knot winds. Every time I head out, I learn something new. There's always something to try and as I expand my set of locations, more times I can head out.

I won't always be have the flexibility so I might as well make the most of it while I can.

Christmas Strawberries on the Beach

Christmas has always been an exciting time of year for me. This year in particular I was lucky that my parents were here for the christmas holidays. Last year Blaise and I were in NZ and we had a sedate christmas; a few prezzies, we made pizza and chilled on the couch.

This year we went all out (many thanks to Blaise who cooked and put up with my over excited christmas buzz). Blaise made his first NZ ham, with oranges and cloves including a side dish of grilled kumara. My folks bought way to many prezzies for Blaise and I. The weather was sunny and warm, the sky was blue, it was summer in NZ.

I had this overwhelming desire to have christmas strawberries on the beach. Not really sure why, not sure where the impetus came from but I had to do this for christmas this year!

So after dinner and a brief recovery time we prepped the strawberries, grabbed the folding chairs and hauled my family down to the beach. ...windy Wellington, i moved to a place called windy Wellington. The wind was gusting, the sand was blowing, christmas strawberries on the beach would not be on the line for this year. However not to be denied my prize i got Blaise to snap a few photos of me eating strawberries on the beach and my parents joined in with good humour.

Christmas - check
Strawberries - check
Beach - check
family - check!

Waikanae with Mom and Dad

I've been to Waikanae before with Blaise for his kiting but in all honesty i have never walked the beach there.

First off let me tell you the first weekend after school holidays is not a good time to be on the road. I knew this too because last year we left super early on that Saturday to avoid the traffic. So when it took nearly 1/2 an hour to go from Paraparaumu to Waikanae i'm surprised it to me that long to remember about the holiday travels.

Anyway we finally got there and met up with Blaise who had come in our car with his kite gear. The wind wasn't quite up to snuff but he held out hope it would pick up. There was one lone kiter who was going to give it a go and while Blaise hung out near the car and gear, my folks and i headed for a walk down the beach. I had never walked the beach before, my past experiences with Waikanae were launch Blaise then hunker down against the wind on the beach or return to the car. It was a pretty nice walk and i saw lots of the blue jellyfish Blaise had said you could see on the shore (and in the water i might add).

Do they sting you ask? Blaise says "YES" but the ones on shore are usually dead (or dying) and aren't much of a threat. Do i want to step on one barefooted to test the theory...no.

We walked down the boat launch area and then turned around and headed back. Blaise called my mobile (cell) to say that the wind had picked up and he was going to gear up and head out. We arrived back at the cars just as he was suiting up and more and more kiters were showing up. The call had gone out and they all knew the wind had arrived. We wandered down to watch Blaise launch before heading home and for once i wasn't on launching duty, my dad took over and did a great job too.

We watched him zip around for a bit and then headed back home.

Botanical Gardens with my parents

I hadn't been to the botanical gardens in a while, not since...a while. I had definitely gone between this December and last, and ah yes i remember. I went with Jess and Lauren when they came in August. It was a lot nicer weather this time, still overcast but not the same volume of wind and rain.

When we arrived up at the top via cable car my parents wandered into the cable car museum. You know its weird that i nor Blaise had ever gone into that place before. It was actually quite good, lots of info, not too much to say "oh boring" just enough to make you go "Ooh thats interesting". We spend a bit in there wandering around, taking the occasional photo.


We headed out to the garden and walked the flower path down to the city passing through the australian garden, cacti garden, hydrangea path, main garden, herb gardens...you get the idea. The path eventually takes you back to the city proper after passing through the cemetery that they had to move 20,000 graves to put the highway through. A pleasant walk for the day and I can't speak for my folks but i for one will sleep tonight.

The Parents visit Berhampore / I did what to my ....?

Last day of school today. And what a doozie of a day. I have been sick for a bit now, a particularly virulent little infection, started off with me coughing up green phlegm, took me off school for almost 2 weeks. And just recently the coughing was really starting to hurt my chest. Before we get into that lets do the fun stuff.

So Tuesday December 15th was my last day at Berhampore school for the term. I had a bunch of kids asking me the day before "is tomorrow your last day?" so i expected (correctly) that presents were forthcoming. And they blew me away with the sheer volume of prezzies and cards, next year maybe I'll ask for a goat. Other companies like world vision do this too.

Anyhoo there was a stage show to be presented at lunch which both my parents had expressed interest in attending. The kids had been working on it for the last week and apart from one forgotten line it was very well done. Later that afternoon after lunch I was starting to feel really pained in the chest area. Like hurting to breathe. So i suggested to my teaching partner (who totally approved bless him) that i would run the last 2 spelling bees and then head to a clinic to see a doctor. Dad who had been collecting left-handed players baseball gloves for us in Canada took a group of excited kids down to practice some skills while i stayed up top to run a bee.

The day ended with some proud spelling bee winners and a pleased as punch teacher (ie. me) wishing the school year hadn't ended quite so soon.

Now onto the bad. My coughing and sore chest. The reason I ended up having pains while breathing was because i have gone and torn the costal cartilage on my 6th rib. The coughing was putting pressure on the area, anyone who has heard me cough knows i put out an enormous woofing cough for someone my size. I finally tore it out Tuesday morning when a particular bad coughing streak hit me in the morning. The doctor says i have to stop coughing and then it will be 2-3 weeks for the cartilage to repair. And to make me feel better he gave me 5 drugs, i kid you not 5. An anti-inflammatory for the muscles, an antibiotic to clear out the last of the virus so i would stop coughing, a pain killer called Tramadol which my mother claims my grandmother is using, and 2 pills to take with Tramadol to reduce the effect its going to have on my stomach and guts. I ended up programming my ipod to whistle at me every time i needed to take a pill because with 5 of them multiple times a day i'm never going to get this straight.

The Santa Run

Dad and Blaise headed out to Whaikane (sp) to do the kite surfing thing and I hung out with my mom. I had in passing glanced at something called the "Wendy's Santa Run" a charity 2.5km run where all the participants wear felt Santa suits. I can't even remember where i saw the info but when i told co-workers and the like about it they all said pretty much the same thing "i've never heard of that."

I think they need better advertising.

So we headed down to the wharf and as we got closer we could hear amplified voices on a PA system. Well i thought this had to be the right place. As we tried to get our bearings on where they would run from I glanced left to the wooden bridge that connects the water to the city. Like a train of ants ran a bunch of people in red, zig zagging in lines down the ramps. This was definitely the right spot. As mom and I debated whether to walk over there the fastest of the pack came out right beside us, as luck would have it we were on the running route.

We took a few pictures, male santas, female santas, little santas and a few little elves.


They did their run around Te Papa and came back along our path and headed to the finish line. A couple of Santas stuck out, the group of moms with their babies in prams, they had decorated them up with gold garlands and the older child had a fairy outfit on and a decorated push scooter to use. A couple who upon their run back decided they were warm and they took a dive off the pier into the water below, we tried to get a photo but they jumped to fast. And finally the lady we will refer to as chesty Claus. I'm sure she was going for a costume prize but two rules 1) think about body appropriateness and 2) if you can't jog in it why did you design it.

The only time she moved faster than a walk was the last 20 meters to the finish line.

Still a pretty fun thing to watch and every jogger seemed to have a good time. If you are Wellington next December check it out.

Two more Canadians kind of escaped to Kiwiland

My parents have arrived!! That's right we're bringing over family now. Well they are not the first my brother Jess had that honour back in August.

They arrived at 8:30am on Tuesday (December 8th) and will be here 30 days! How sweet is that. We have christmas, our summer atm, a trip to Napier planned and lots of stuff in and around Wellington.

So they got in and we headed to their place in Newtown where they began to unpack. We headed downtown organized their banking, got a cellphone for them, met Blaise for lunch, picked up their rental car and headed to our home in Island Bay for a visit. Mom was impressed on how they have built on the hills; she feels Halifax could learn from them. Both were suitably impressed by the views off our decks, Dad in particular couldn't get enough of them. He was so impressed he collected my outdoor beanbags, borrowed a hoodie and headed out for some fresh air.

He got comfy and then bam! nap time for an hour and a half, I think jet lag caught up with him. He wants to get rid of the cherry tree blocking our view on the lower deck and if the property management gives us the go ahead I'm sicking him on that tree.

Dog Whisperer

Our last day in the Cook Islands. I thought i should devote a moment to the plant life. On our walkway from the main road to the house there is hibiscus in 5 different colours, fragipani in yellow and pink (that's what they make the flower necklaces out of in the Cook Islands), coconuts and the above plant (which i think must be related to a bird of paradise).

Anyhoo onto the subject of this particular blog entry. We dropped the chariot off around 1pm and headed back to the beach house. We had put 300km on that thing, the island is only 36km round so we drove it a few times. It had been a lazy morning and the early afternoon was also quite lazy but finally we decided we shouldn't waste our last day so we decided to walk across to the little islets we could see from the house.


We waded across the water to the first islet and upon arriving were greeted by two very friendly pooches wearing collars. Shrugging our shoulders (dogs in the Cooks are pretty relaxed and free wandering) we headed to the back of the islet to see how close we could get to the reef edge breaking on the lagoon. As you can see we got pretty close to the thing.


We decided to cross the three islets and return to the Muri beach spot where Blaise had been launching kites. Our furry friends had followed us the whole time we were walking and when we started to cross to the next islet they followed us. Now the water was not deep, chest high at best and the distance wasn't that great. To my knowledge dogs are good swimmers, see doggy paddle, so much to our surprise we found our doggy friends were not the best of swimmers. You would think that dogs living on an island would be swimmers. Anyways we had nicknamed them Shorty and Stubby, Shorty kept trying to climb onto Stubby or me and Blaise and Stubby didn't like his ears getting wet, he kept shaking his head to get the water out which made him sink.

At one point we found them a rock they could climb up onto.

We gave them a chance to rest and Shorty (the black one) had a real hard time coming off the rock, he only hopped down when we got far enough away from him, and even then he kept trying to climb on top of one of us. We arrived on the 2nd islet and as we walked down the shore we were joined by a third dog and then a fourth one. All wearing collars and friendly thought the 4th one looked a little skinny.

It was by this point we started our theory. Local dogs followed the tourists out to the islets during low tide as they went exploring but then got stuck there and couldn't get back even during low tide. So when we showed up they came out of the trees with the hopes they could follow us home. So with 4 of them in tow we started our walk across the water to the third islet. One of them broke off leaving us with three. Stubby and Shorty did their thing, shaking his ears or trying to climb onto us. By this point we getting very amused with our collection. On the third islet we could spot the Muri beach resorts so we headed to the crossing. Now here was definitely deeper; it came up to about my neck, not a far distance though. So we set out, Stubby, Shorty, the new skinny one and Blaise and I. I was carrying the backpack on my head and things started off well. Blaise got across with the skinny dog. He took off at a run as soon as he got ashore, guess he was eager to get home.

Stubby (the ear shaking one) was hanging back with Shorty who was doing his jumping onto Stubby trick. As we got further away from them Shorty lost his nerve and turned back to the islet, got there and started to howl. Stubby also turned around and headed back to join him. I looked at Blaise, he looked at me, took the bag and smirked and headed to the resorts. I turned around and headed back to the dogs.

Both got up to see me when i got ashore back on the islet, Stubby was happy to see me and dove back into the water but Shorty just wouldn't do it. I petted, called, coaxed and nada so I headed back with Stubby in tow figuring someone else would rescue Shorty. Half way across with Stubby I heard a yelp and Shorty had launched into the water after us. He reached us and then panicked. He jumped on Stubby who was trying to desperately keep his ears dry. His shaking his head was sinking him and then Shorty jumped on him, they both went under, doggie panic ensued.

Having enough of this I grabbed one under each arm like a footballer, after an initial struggle they realized that they were not drowning anymore and they calmed down.

By this point Blaise and a couple of other tourists were standing on the shore enjoying the show of me carrying two dogs and Blaise had the camera out.

Shorty made a break for shore as we got close enough and headed off home (we assume) but Stubby needed a little more help. Then he followed us...everywhere...he followed us up the path to the road, he followed us down the road, up our driveway, up the stairs of the house...we had a problem. We went inside and Stubby stayed on the deck resting. "Well at least we'll leave tonight," I said, "He'll head off when he realizes he won't get fed."
He spent an hour on the deck before standing up and stretching and heading off down the driveway. And that is the saga of Shorty and Stubby.

No diving...to much wind...boo!

Due to the high winds, which Blaise likes, the boat from the dive shop had to be taken out of the water. I was waiting for the pick-up which seemed to be running late, I walked back up to the house and gave them a call. For future reference leave a phone number so they can call me for cancellations.

So we had a morning now to kill. I was already wearing contacts, seemed a waste to take them out so we decided to go snorkeling again. We had to find a new spot today as the wind was churning up the water enough to make it hard to see anything (and the fish were hiding). So we headed further south looking for a more protected, windless side. The south coast turned out to be much calmer but still we plowed on. The west coast though was amazingly calm. We pulled up to a nice beach with lots of coral visible and the water surface relatively calm. Three small Cook Island kids (the oldest had to be 4, 5 tops) were playing in the water. They were friendly and ran over to say "hi". We put down our gear on the sand and waded out. We snorkeled and once again were blown away by the fish life. Blaise again had a cluster of fishie friends, we saw the Picasso Triggerfish, tonnes of wrasse and of course the butterfly fish. There was a needlefish (similar to the cornet fish i saw the day before but smaller), big bluefin trevally and scissortail sergeants. Basically a whole new set of fish. The odd thing was that we saw completely different fish species. For example on the east side of the island there was tonnes of threadfin butterfly. On the west side of the island I saw very few of threadfin butterfly but tonnes of racoon butterfly fish.

A cute little wrasse (threespot or sunset, not sure which subspecies) came up to me. I mean right in front of my mask, just hovering there was a cute little fish. So in my excitement I bubbled "Blaise" and pointed at the fishie. The cute little fishie ...BIT ME! I mean it wasn't hard or anything, it was just surprising. Blaise who had been looking at this spectacle the whole time was laughing at me. Turns out they enjoy eating a banana out of tourist's hand so maybe he thought finger = banana.

We got back out of the water to sit on the sand for a while. Blaise took a nap for a bit and I hauled out my little 2 string stunt kite he had bought me. The wind just took the kite and it whipped back and forth. The three children immediately came running over squealing with delight. The oldest one, a girl, was delighted and hooked and stood in front of me holding onto the strings. Blaise at one point wanted his turn so my young friend and I took over the job of launching it. Then the young lady demanded her go "by herself". Blaise agreed spot her which turned out to be a good thing. She was capable of holding onto the strings even though they pulled quite hard but she did sort of launch out of the water from the pull (I know that experience) at which point Blaise grabbed her and held her down. She flew the kite until her auntie called her "to stop bothering the tourists and time to go". I took one more turn and managed to put it into a palm tree. Blaise's exact quote was "man i'm glad you did that to your kite and not me". We got it out with a bit of strategic pulling and a lucky wind gust.

When we returned home Blaise called me in a loud urgent tone, he had discovered a rather large cockroachy friend. No sorry thats wrong, it was a large cockroach.

Minutes later we saw a baby house gecko, the type that eat insects...I really hope he was a smart little baby because I'm pretty sure that cockroach could have eaten it. If you squint you can see it below the speaker's left corner, tiny green thing. Click on the pictures to get the full size version.


I begged for a sunset takeaway dinner. We stopped at the takeaway we had seen each time we went through town, grabbed 2 burgers and a chip and headed to the north-west shore to watch a sunset. We were a bit late for the red clouds but it was pretty nonetheless with light streaming through the clouds. It was a great end to the day that didn't have scuba ^^bb

The Best Waffle Ever!

Strange thing about travelling you find the weirdest things; in this case we found the best waffle in the world at the Nui Market in Rarotonga.

After my dives that day we hung out on the beach for a bit.


The wind picked up a little so we attempted to get Blaise's 14m kite up (I'll let him tell that story) but even with the female kite surfing world champ (I'm serious) who happened to walk by and try and help launch it just didn't go.

We had been very good about eating at home the last few days, breakfast, lunch and dinner so we headed into town on our chariot to find some dinner. We passed a little harbour of wooden boats so of course we had to stop and take a photo of them for my folks.

Note the storage box for fish.

We had been told about a $10 steak that was mind blowing so we were planning to do that but as we drove in the open air market was packed full of people and bbqs. Curious we stopped for a look. The Pacific Mini Games had finished and the closing ceremonies were to be held tomorrow but tonight was a large cook out. There was about 15-20 food bbq/stalls set up, all selling $10 plates which included some combination of pork chops, chicken, beef, Rice, Taro, chow mein, salad and potato salad. A hurried conversation and steak was off the menu, we each grabbed $10 and headed to a different bbq person. I was delighted with mine and I loved the taro, kind of like a super dense bread, tasteless with a spongy texture. Blaise did not like his taro (or mine, he did try both) so I got all the taro in exchange for a pork chop and some rice. I'm pretty sure I got the better end of the deal.

After dinner we kept walking around looking at the the stalls selling things and happened to walk by one vendor that was advertising waffles. In a moment of psychic linkage we agreed on waffles and walked over to the vendor. A very friendly couple made us a waffle using a fancy waffle iron that spun and twisted into the heat. It made the best, i repeat the best waffle we had ever had. So good that we went back to a) compliment them and b) ask if they would be there tomorrow so we could have another.

Sadly they would be gone tomorrow, it was their wedding anniversary and we couldn't begrudge them that, but hey we got to enjoy one that night. We finished the evening with a giant pink cotton candy (which they call Fairy Floss here). Awesome end to the day.