we've put more than a few kilometres on the subaru lately. After we left Raglan on the 29th of December we drove down to Taupo to meet Ewok and Bec for new years. It was a pretty good time, we swam i the Waikato river where geo-thermal streams run in, making for a natural hot tub right beside a nice cool river. One of the pictures shows how nice of a view we had from Ewoks place for new years eve.

After a few days in Taupo the four of us headed east down to Napier and Hastings, a pretty classic old town that was levelled by an earthquake in the early 1930's. We stayed a few days on Bec's parents farm, it was amazingly similar to avondale on pender isl. Then we took off to blackhead beach further down the coast near a town called Waipawa, Bec's parents had a sweet lil holiday home there .

After just a day there we drove clear across the north island, through palmerston north, to hawera at the southern end of Taranaki bight, the larger round peninsula on the west coast famous for good surf and rugged coastline. We cut up to Oakura and stayed at the wave haven for a few nights. New plymouth the main city is just a few km north and up the coast a lil further is Urenui. We have some friends who live in a lil cabin there so we pitched our tent on their lil plot overlooking the sea and Mt. Taranki (an active volcano, looks a lot like Mt Fuji)

We all had to ride a Quad up to their cabin in the woods, and we spent sometime on the beach surf casting for fish, we managed to catch a stingray and a few lil rock climbs. I scored a few good waves at Ahu Ahu and Oakura Beach, surfing the beach for a time in shoulder high lines with no one else out, God is good.

We got itchy feet and took off, drove across the island again to Mt Manganui, we were here before and came back to see a concert in waihi beach. Tomorrow after the concert we are going to skirt across the island one more time back to Raglan to ditch the car, from there its just a quick trip to Auckland and a short flight back to Brisbane.

So there it is, you can see most of the roads we travelled while we were here, Driving here is pretty easy with such great scenery and company. Canadians think nothing of piling into the car and ripping 400km to a destination in one shot, Kiwis on the other hand would not likely drive that far more than once a year, if that, a curious breed they are.

To see some pics of christmas in Raglan check out Allisons facebook page.