Surf Mobile Reserved!

Finally got the international calling figured out! Only $1.99 a minute for me to call the states from NZ!! Wow... Texting will be the way to go for sure, it's only $.05 for me to receive and $.50 to send. That or email, because since I've decided to bring the laptop, it'll be free.

Anyway, got the car switched to the economy wagon, after some attempts at negotiating the price down with the heavy accented rental car dude. I failed miserably, but kinda thought I would so not a big deal.
That's the Surf-moblie!! Looks like a weird Saab-ish version of the Golf. Obviously not as sweet though...

The Oregon Surf Shop got all of my gear in last week at once which is awesome, I'll post pics of my packing attempts soon. Otherwise it's pretty much just waiting, 10 days. Haven't heard from Stu in over a week, but Zac said that he is getting epic waves at shipwrecks still. I haven't surfed since the last post, the knee's still hurting a little, and I figure it'll be better in the long run to save it for NZ.

Drive Thru Kiwi style!

After talking to Stu and his ridiculous adventures trying to bike the roads with no shoulders in New Zealand, we have all talked and decided to pitch in and rent a car. It will end up costing us about what we were going to have to spend on a bike anyway, and give us a ridiculous amount of freedom for exploring and finding awesome nooks and perfect waves.

The car is booked right now, (a 3 door hatchback) but we are going to upgrade to a 5 door economy wagon as soon as we can get ahold of the rental company (who knew it was so hard to call internationally?!?).

Anyway, Zac had surgery on his tooth, and has been out of the water for a week and probably has a week more of dry time before he can surf. I just injured my knee, so I'm probably out of the water at least for the next few days, but more likely the rest of the week +. Meanwhile Stu's getting epic waves at shipwrecks. Damn it. 19 days...

How this whole thing started

About midway through a long winter, with what seemed like the worst surf on record for years, my good friend Stu Williams had had enough. He informed me one day while we were working out at the plant nursery we both were employed by that he was going to New Zealand. I was kind of taken back, because I'd never even thought of taking a surf trip there, and he said he wanted to go for about 6 months. I went home that night and looked up some info about NZ and found it to be extremely interesting, and it sounded even better considering the lack of waves and good weather in Oregon. I tentatively made plans in my head to keep saving money I already had planned for some unknown trip and add on to it to make it to NZ. Long story short, we decided that we'd take off close to our winter here in Oregon the next year, and would start our trip during their summer, hopefully skipping the majority of long stormy weeks at home.

Then came the idea for biking. Actually it was more of an issue of how do we stretch this trip out to last as long as we wanted. By now we had realistically planned for 3-4 months, but we couldn't figure out how to afford moving around the island much, with petrol prices up around $10 a gallon there. One night while discussing the trip with my dad, he suggested biking. That's all we needed to hear, and our tickets were booked, and plans arranged. Our friend Zac Booth happened to be there during this discussion, and the idea got him so stoked he took all his saved up money and bought a ticket as well.

7 months later and Stu has left (yesterday, Tuesday the 29th of September) already. Zac is due to leave October 28th and I leave November 2nd. Zac and I are still discussing final prep plans and trying to get all our gear together, while Stu pretty much just went for it. I'll update on the progress of everything as the trip comes closer together!