Well i must say arrival in NZ is something that has been on the cards for myself for a long time now ... and here i am !
And loving it to be honest . My love so far is of course due to certain circumstances and i feel very blessed with the way my trip has rolled out. A big shout out must go to BB's sister Susie and her boyfriend Dan who put us up in their tiny flat for a couple of weeks before we moved on. A couple of really beautiful people who are so nice we have decided to get a house with them . Something i will get more into later. But first i must mention the 48 hour film festival.
Something else which Dan and Susie got us involved in for our first weekend which turned out to be a heap of fun where we got to meet lots of cool people and most of all got to help out in the making of a short film ! The idea is each team is given a different genre from a list of about 10 or so , a line which has to be in the film ( same for every team , this year it was 'wait a minute') , a character and theme which is again the same for each team which was this year 'Kerry Poste' and 'perfectionest'. At 7pm on Friday night a member from each team is released from the local bowls club with their genre for their team ( the rest is broadcast on TV ) and have exactly 48 hours to make a movie no longer than 7 minutes long and have it returned by 7pm Sunday night. Writing , filming , sound and editing all done in 48 hours which makes for , as their slogan states, furious film making. As you can imagine we had a ball and for our first weekend in NZ it was an absolute hoot. This year there were over 600 teams which are narrowed down to 12 finalists who get judged on by the likes of Peter Jackson for prize money etc. All the films are screened in heats at a local cinema too so it was really cool to see ours on the big screen and see some of the other entries also. Once the heats are over it will be posted on youtube for all to see so i will post the address when i know.
In other exciting news we have decided to move into a house with Susie and Dan as well. We found a sweet 2 story house and applied and had it approved last week. Its a 12 month lease and the plan is to use Auckland as a base to later see the country from during the summer and also as a place to stock up on the funny bills. Living in a house should make it much easier to save and it should be fun living with Dan and Susie. We have a heap of ideas for adventures already which is really cool.
Something else which is now happening is our looking after of the 'Endless Summer Lodge' in Ahipara about 5 hours North of Auckland on the West coast(see map). Its a sweet little coastal village about 10km from Kaitaia tucked into a bay at the southern part of 90 mile beach.Arrived last Friday to a solid 4 foot swell producing some nice waves on the point and some good beachbreaks at high tide. The weather is not that cold although venturing into the ocean of course requires wetsuit action.
We are here at the hostel looking after the running of the place for a week while the owners have gone away. There a couple of guys staying here for free in return for doing all the cleaning so our job is pretty cruisy at the moment with it being fairly quiet during the week although with the long weekend coming up i am sure that will change. There is a bit of painting to be done on a new extension and as the sun is expected to shine , thanks to a big fat high pressure system from Australia , so it will be nice get stuck into that over the next few days.
The only other task is to look after the dogs which is always fun taking them on the beach for walks and hangin out in the garden. I have always loved dogs and having 2 and a beach is a treat. This is one place that will be hard to leave.
So as you can see for good reason i have been loving NZ and the future looks no different with new people and places always on the horizon. For now though there is Ahipara , one place which i am set to make the most of.
So for now big love to you all and of course ...
Enjoy !
