Want to go surfing tomorrow morning? (such a cool question…)
It’s only £10 to hire a wetsuit and surfboard, I definitely need the practice, so why not?
We had ambitious plans to be up at 7am before the wind picked up but our late night mountain climb put paid to that so everyone just slept late. I had to check out by 10 so I just put my stuff in the store for the morning so I could go try surfing again. I think I managed 2 good rides but I was only out there for an hour and half. I was getting tired quickly by the relentless waves. I tried to do what the other surfers did by just sitting on the board in front of where they break for a rest. But 10 mins of that and I felt ill so I went to sit on the beach instead.
After a while I tried to remember what the instructor had told me. I felt a bit dim, practicing my “pop up“ on the dry beach. I’m sure it helped but everything is different in the water. My arms just don’t want to do what I’ve been practicing, and water is just not as solid as sand. IT MOVES! I think I just have to accept I’m not destined to rule the waves like I rule the rock (HA!)
Dried off and on the bike, I had a reasonably long afternoons ride. There was such a variation to the landscape today. Starting coastal as I trickled out of Tauranga, soon evolved into carving between trees in managed forests. There were also tall thin lines of fern trees planted very deliberately guarding some sort of cultivated bushes held up with string. I think these are either kiwi or avocado but I haven’t checked. A few more forests on small hills broken up by the decimated patches that have recently been felled. Arriving in Taupo, there was a lakeside fast blast and then up a hill onto the volcano plateau of scrubland and thermal vents.
Every 5km or so there is a brown attraction sign (like the UK) luring you from the main road to a hot pool or geyser, rapids, forest or randomly a glass blowing workshop in the middle of nowhere in particular.
I rocked up in Tongariro National Park at National Park (imaginative place name…) found a hostel and cooked far too much food, even for a human of my… magnitude, to finish.
Usually I write these posts in the morning after the day has occurred so I don’t miss any shenanigans the evening might bring. But tonight I’m being deliberately anti-social and writing it now. I want to get some good sleep in preparation for tomorrow’s walk over the Alpine Crossing, self professed “best walk in NZ”.