Nothin like a free tramp

Perfect waves, sparkling black sand beach, and .............. ICE CUBES IN THE WATER! Dang!
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We are headed south now to catch the ferry in Wellington to the South Island.  We have covered quite a bit of distance in our campervan including overnight stays in Auckland, Opinoni, Muriwai Beach, Mount Maunganui, and Huka Falls, and we will be spending tonight in Paekakariki (the Maori names are sooo hard to pronounce and remember!)  This country is so diverse and beautiful!  The driving is always a challenge since everything seems to be backwards from what we are used to (different, not wrong, side of the road, not to mention calculating using the metric system!)  Our campervan rocks, as we are totally self contained and self sufficient (diesel too, so much cheaper than petrol!)  The funniest thing is that it is getting colder as we head south, also something we are not used to!  Temperature gets down to about 40 C at night, and no more than about 60 C in the day....today we passed some mountains with snow!  We were able to do a wine tasting at a private winery which was fun, 'tramped' (hiked/trekked) around Mt. Manganui, and watched some people surf some beautiful and clean breaking waves which were so tempting until we stuck our fingers in the frigid cold waters!  The South Island should be cool, it's a 3.5 hour ferry ride across and we will be taking our camper with us.  More to come soon, internet isn't cheap over here!