Muriwai, New Zealand

After i left Maunganui i met up with Maureen in Auckland and headed out to meet the rest of the O´Connor family. I met the O´Connor family on a boat from Panama to Columbia. Brendan from NZ and Maureen from USA are second generation Irish and live in Muriwai with their two kids; Shannon and Rory. The last time we had seen each other was at the mud volcano close to Cartagena in Columbia. The family traveled around Central and South America and had a trip of a lifetime. It was great to meet up and exchange stories about similar places we traveled and the crazy experiences we ended up having as a result.

Muriwai as you can see is a beautiful place and its hard to believe it is so close to Auckland city.

The photos above are straight from the nearly finished beautiful new house.

I must say i am jealous of the views, they are beautiful, especially on a nice summer day.

Brendan brought me out to see the gannets on Muriwai beach.

I had only ever seen the gannets on a documentary in the the Galápagos Islands and it was great to see them performing the sexual ritual of clashing and clattering the beaks to test their potential partner.

Thanks very much to the O´Connor family for inviting me out to their beautiful new home and looking forward to seeing you again.

Maunganui, New Zealand

Well i made my way to Maunganui from Auckland in the north island of New Zealand to see my mate Nate which i last saw in bariloche in Argentina.

It was a really random feeling seeing each other again on the other side of the world in his local town, however I must say we had a ball.

I arrived back to Nathans´ house and his house mate Ed cracked open a beer, Jodi through up dinner and Stacey disappeared. It wasn't long until we hit the cornerstone pub and i was mixing with more locals, was class night even if we did end up in a tacky Irish bar.

The first morning Jodi and i walked out the back-garden and straight out onto the golf course. The ball pinged with the Callaway sound and the sun was shining, of course a few days later i had to get another round in where Stacey illustrated it was socially acceptable to consume a bottle beer whilst golfing in NZ...lol

After lunch Nathan showed me the "town" James and himself had built, but the best part was jumping on his and my first time on a motor cross bike. After the mud spun into the air and sprayed onto my face-guard he decided to show me how to drive it.

Needless to say after much effort i went too fast for a beginner but with only one near call, ...(trying to drive up a 45 degree large mound where the bike nearly crashed onto my leg,) i survived and loved it :)

Nate and his missiz brought me up Mount Maunganui and i learned about the traditional Mauri beliefs of the beautiful local landscape.

The highlight of the trip without a doubt was when Stace & Nathan brought me out in the boat to wakeboarding in the rain , as per ever activity i did in NZ it was my first time wakeboarding.

The rain stopped the water was flat as a pancake, not a ripple in sight..except from a few SHARKS which didn't deter us. I must say its a class sport but i struggled to get out of the watter, although after a few blisters i mastered the art and enjoyed gliding along the water.

Seriously though the two lads were flipping over and back and how they managed to stay with the speedy boat ...i really don't know.

Blow carting was invented in Tauranga before it was adopted in Tramore in Waterford and let me tell ye, it was hilarious craic, before we started Nate continued to tell me how he was going to kick my ass....well he was lapped more than several times and learned the importance of being quite yet competitively determined to kick some ass lol

Later we hit the number one NZ luge which is based in Rotorua. Its a cart that flies down a mountain, to get back up to the start of the track you need to take the gondola cableway so its certainly steep and fast as you tear down the side of the mountain, needless to say i went too fast, bumped off the track and injured myself with a love hear scar in memory of my NZ trip:)

Check out the love heart shape on my arm

Maunganui certainly has good night life entertainment on the weekends but the through beauty is the activity based lifestyle that can be achieved is what it makes it so special, a big thanks to Nathan, i owe ye one.