On a volcano with the Auckland skyline as a backdrop
Ah, your honeymoon; time to go relax on a beach and drink brightly colored beverages with little umbrellas for a week or two. That sounds amazing, or amazingly boring.
Opting for the second, Katie and I went for more of an adventure honeymoon. We wanted a holiday to play, ideally somewhere warm since it was the middle of a Colorado winter, and surfing, mountain biking, and a dash of fly fishing seemed to fit the bill. Now we just had to decide where to go for such an adventure. Sure Florida, Hawaii, Costa Rica and Mexico were all valid options but this was our honeymoon. We needed to go somewhere more anomalous, more riveting than we would otherwise normally travel to. And the winner was New Zealand, a land I have lusted after for years. As much as we would have liked to visit the entire country, we only had two weeks and stayed on the northern half of the north island. Clearly now we have to return to explore the rest of the county.
The flight over took a long time. A very long time. Waiting to board the plane in San Francisco, I had quite a few people came chat with me regarding my fly rod, a brand new 4-piece 5 weight Sage FLi, very obviously attach to my pack. Given how much New Zealand was revered as a fly fishing destination in my house growing up, this should have been no surprise. What was a surprise was the fact that I did not have any firm plans on where I would fish. I heard all sorts of great places to go fish (I am not sure that if I had a month, I could spend enough time to properly explore all of them. Not that I wouldn’t be willing to try…).
We finally boarded our flight, on Air New Zealand, and settled in for 13 hours in a very confined space. As uncomfortable as it was, Air New Zealand did their best to make it enjoyable. We had an excellent meal and the entertainment systems had more movies and TV shows that I could possibly stay awake for; Katie did her best trying though. If you have to fly for that long, Air New Zealand was a great way to go.
Surfers at a black sand beach, west of Auckland
We landed shortly after 5:00 am local time and were met by an old friend who resides in Auckland, Rebecca Tetley. While I am not sure when the last time Rebecca had to get up that early was, she cheerfully picked us up and guided us around Auckland for the day. We ate breakfast on the harbor and then followed the cows up a volcano for a great view of the city. After a failed ferry ride (something like $200 NZD, we passed), Rebecca took us through some attractive wine country to a black sand beach on the western coast. We saw a bunch of surfers, enjoyed the rocky views, and Rebecca introduced us to Hokey Pokey ice cream. On the way back we stopped at a small winery and tasted the local fare; if we knew more about wine it would have been awesome. Finally, and thoroughly exhausted, Rebecca left us at the Rendezvous Hotel and we fell asleep shortly after seven. If we had the energy, surely we would have dreamed about the surf camp that was to come in the morning!
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