Sorry. But I have no pics for this post. Next time, pictures. It's a promise.
So I had the weekend off from the winery and decided to drive down to Devonport to hang out with the Canadian divers I met a week ago.
Since, I was heading down there, I offered to give the girls I'm working with a ride too. Devonport is just a short ferry ride from Auckland for them. Plus, we've all been working our butts off, literally. After work, we're hanging in a barn in the evening, bathing in an outdoor shower, and freezing to death each night.
We were all ready for a piece of civilization.
I had a great weekend and it was completely worth the 6 hour round trip drive.
Partly, because I became an honorary trunk monkey.
Here's a hilarious YouTube video/commercial about a trunk monkey.
http://m.youtube.com/results?q=trunk%20monkey
Trunk monkey por vida!
The first night in Devonport I went to a pub called the Patriot and hung out with the guys over some beers and a pop rock cover band. Devonport is a really small, boutique town in the north harbor of greater Auckland. So the night scene is a bit low key but it felt like a rave compared to the barn.
The next day I walked with one of the Canucks all over Devonport. We went to the top of north head, checked out the old fort and cannons. Then moseyed down to a beautiful beach. It was low tide and we walked into the ocean about 50 yards and the water was still not up to my knees.
On our way back to Devonport center we stopped at a pub and played some pool and had a few pints. The pool tables and balls are tiny here. I'm no good at pool normally, but with the targets being miniature I sucked even more than usual.The bet was, he had to sink all of his balls before I could get a single one in. It had to be a complete shutout. It was close. I didn't win by much, but I did win, and my opponent had to drink his next pint while sitting under a table. Yeah, I trolled him..... He was a really good sport about it!
That night we joined up with the others for dinner at a Mexican restaurant called Mexico. How did they come up with the name?!? Haha
The food was really good, not quite good ol' Cali style. This place was a little fancy. We sipped some very expensive tequila. Totally new concept to me...aren't you supposed to just shoot it? And I macked on an incredibly good pumpkin taco. Wait did I say pumpkin taco? Yup. I gambled and won on that one.
Good times were had.
Sunday morning we returned to the Stone Oven for breakfast and more amazing coffee, just like the morning before. Then we headed west to Muriwai beach to do some surfing.
I was definitely over confident in my surfing abilities. By a million percent.
This beach was nothing like the little baby beach I had long boarded at in Maui.
This beach had Big Boy Waves. And a ripping current. I couldn't even paddle out past the first break. Not even with a navy diver trying to manually tow me in. The divers did great. One is an avid surfer and he was shredding some of the curls. The beginner was catching wave after wave....I was very impressed.
That's alright, me and my bruised ego caught a few rollers and I even stood up a few times and rode them the whole way in. I also got smacked around by my board, wrapped up in my leash, and slammed into the sandy bottom floor.
Good times!
After surfing we had just enough time to drive back to Devonport and grab some dinner before I had to meet the girls at the ferry and start our drive back north to Parou Bay winery.
It was definitely hard to leave the good life of fun, beer and all things civilized to return to a job where I do a thousand squats by 2 pm and couldn't even get all the dirt outta my fingers after my
weekend off. But I'm having an amazing time with everything I do. From pumpkin tacos to migrant
labor....life is good.
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