kayak jack

we went sea kayaking today around waiheke island. our tour guide, let’s call him kayak jack, is planning to some day try to be the first person to kayak from australia to new zealand, which would take something on the order of six weeks. our little group of five didn’t quite make it that far; we just made our way a few km around the coast, but then turned back because the northeasterlies were acting up and causing increasing swells. still, it was a lot of fun, and even more so that we didn’t get swept out to sea. there was even a particularly entertaining bird called a shag that swam around our kayaks for a while, hamming it up for effect.

afterwards we all ended up going to one of the wineries on the island, this one named mudbrick winery after the building materials of the main house. nice little lunch with kayak jack and the other three japanese tourists, two of which were from the pacific northwest and were in new zealand as part of a company-wide sponsored trip, and the other being a single woman from okinawa, on holiday from her catering/cooking school business.

hmc ended up tasting the wines afterwards and being quite excited about them, but we opted not to get any, as we didn’t want to lug them around for the rest of our trip. we can always come back on the tail end if need be. not that i could really smell the difference between the white pepper flavored shiraz or the butterscotch chardonnay or the tobacco/leather merlot.

we fly out tomorrow to australia and the dunk island resort. horrifically early. plus another time change. travelling is fun!

p.s. what the hell is going on in the nba? i leave for a few days, and players are fighting with fans, and ron artest gets suspended for a whole year? wtf?!

Posted at November 23, 2004 8:22 PM