Raglan, NZ (pt 3)

We are actually sitting on the patio of an outdoor cafe in Hamilton eating breakfast before we continue on to Auckland.  I’m enjoying my french toast with caramelized bananas and bacon, Dan’s eating the ‘Backpackers Breakfast’, which is the usual affair of sausage, toast, eggs & hash browns. We had just left our little ‘home’ in Raglan and said our goodbyes to our travelling friends.  First, let me talk about the Katchafire concert for a bit.  For someone who wasn’t familiar with their music, I had enjoyed the show very much.  The crowd was really into it, and the venue was pretty intimate.   The show was opened by Mana Maoli and not until we checked out the swag table did I realize that I had already purchased their CD about a year or two ago, so that was kind of neat seeing them live.  Dan & I had chatted with an older lady from Raglan, who at first glance, did not look like the typical reggae fan.  She was very proper, had smart clothes and her grey hair was fashionably styled.  But when Katchafire came on stage I looked over at her and noticed that she was singing along and rocking the same groove as the youngins’.   As one of their last songs, Katchafire did a cover of Bob Marley’s ‘Three Little Birds’, which was pretty sweet, since the entire crowd enthusiastically sang along.

Yesterday, our last full day in Raglan, we spent the morning checking out their Creative Market, where I was tempted again with handmade  belts, dresses, purses, FOOD, but we both came out unscathed.  In the afternoon, a big group of us piled up into three cars and hit the surf one last time.  There must have been about a dozen of us that all went together.  The waves were larger than 2 days back, and was a little rough.  My first go at it I bailed and swallowed water.  I tried a few other times, but wasn’t as successful in getting up as I was the first day we tried.  So, Dan took the board further out into the bigger waves for a bit.  We also had the opportunity to trade boards with our new surfer friends to see how they felt.  I tried a shorty in the smaller waves, and could only get up on one knee, it slips around more easily than the longboards. Either way, it was still great fun.  Since there were so many folks, we started resorting to calling each other by our countries or cities, which was great, except we had about 8 Germans with us.  There was also a young girl who just graduated from high school, her name was Calgary, who was travelling until August when she would need to return home for her brother’s wedding.

We all ended the day with a soak in the hot tub back at the hostel, dinner, beer, further socialized with Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Montreal & Israel and played cards until midnight.  Thus ending our surf town adventure in New Zealand.