Day Two: Auckland to Raglan

we finally got into auckland airport at 3 am on the 18th. we didnt have any reservations yet for a car or hotel and absolutely everything was closed (as you can imagine). we were really tired and cranky and not to stoked that we would be spending the first night of our grand adventure in the airport. but with the car companies opening at 6, we would rather just get an early start the next morning.

we ended up getting a great deal on a car at 6 and by 7 we were off. the only place we had any exact idea we wanted to go was raglan, an hour outside hamilton on the coast, so we headed there. it is about a two hour drive from the airport but we enjoyed the early morning radio shows patterned after kiis fm ryan seacrest show. it was complete with a "lil' ally" wannabe and "60-seconds of sleeze". i think it was so funny to us because we were absolutely sleep deprived. we rolled into raglan and started our first hunt for lodging. this was totally foreign to me because all of my vacations are usually planned out, especially lodging. we went to a few places, but non of them impressed us. finally we found the Karioi Lodge. a very nice place with a great front desk gal who set us up in the "sweet as suite". we liked to think of this as the deluxe suite of the hostel because it was a fully self contained room set off away from the rest of the hostel. after a quick nap, it was off o check out the famous surf breaks. as we pulled up, i had always imagined this moment to be looking over these ginormous perfect left breaks just waiting for justin to hop in there and catch the perfect barrel. but as we got there we were surprised to see it was completely flat! not a single wave over 2 inches.

a little disappointed, but it turned out to be good because it gave us a chance to check out all of the different breaks. turns out there is raglan beach break, manu bay and whale bay that are all good when the swell is there. this is manu bay which is the most accessable. as you can see, no waves. a surfers worst nightmare after flying halfway around the world.next we checked out whale bay, which is just a little bit down the road but is more exclusive. you have to walk through this tiny little staircase inbetween these really nice houses that overlook the break. to get out to these waves is a bit trickier because they crash onto a rocky shoreline equaling lots of cuts if not done properly. we look so tired and sunburned :(they had these beautiful canna flowers while we were there that i loved the colors of. i love flowers and justin is excited because i take pictures of them so it lasts longer.

j decided he wanted to get in the water at the beach beak in raglan. it was a bt rainy and cold so we didnt stay very long. we were soon off to bed, or at least in our bed to start the marathon of lord of the rings, it only seemed appropriate.