Flat white with waves please? Sweet as.

This afternoon while Bryan battled the Raglan surf (with his 'new-to-him' surf board) I battled the Raglan roads (with my old running shoes). Once I found my stride (elbows in, feet basically in the ditch, ears open for speeding cars - NZ rural roads are basically widened four-wheeler trails), my mind wandered over our Raglan visit. I imagined crafting a Powerpoint presentation to summarize the main findings so far in this west coast surf town. Sadly, I do not have access to Microsoft on this million-dollar internet substation, and so a few notes and photos in a "blupdate" (blog-update, thanks Sally) will have to suffice. Please see below.

The New Zealand Coffee: While it wasn't in Raglan that I first discovered my love of the arabica bean (that was rather long ago while brainstorming a thesis proposal in a Halifax cafe) it is the place that I came to fall in love with this liquid goodness all over again. It's the perfect answer to any question. I have decided that coffee will be one of the simple pleasures I would allow myself in my travel budget.

The Merino Wool: No matter how many times we hear, "Oh common, you're Canadian!" - it's (surprisingly) cold in New Zealand. The beloved merino wool is much like the New Zealand lamb - widepsread throughout the land. Globalization has managed to work against us though, and although it's made here, it remains phenonmenally expensive. Instead we keep to the simple luxuries (see photo above).

Spot the Surf: Manu Bay, NZ - home of the most left hand surfers in the world (or something like that). A zoomed in photo would reveal dozens of little black bobbing surfers.

Spot the Surfer: Behold the man with the board, driven mad by the glorious aqua waves. As I run along the blacksand beach I can see him grinning from metres away.

Wood-Oven Fired Pizza: Just 2.5 hours of work a day has granted us a converted caboose in a Raglan seaside eco-retreat. The energy in this place is contagious, everyone beaming from their NZ travels or waves caught at the beach. The perfect ingredients for supper: people from all nooks and crannies of the world (from Spain to Norway), a phenomenal chef (the mastermind from Uruguay), and a huge wood-fired oven. Thank you Raglan, you've been good to us.