I thought I'd do the write up for last weekend now despite having no photos. I'll post some as and when I get them.
Well, I went to Mambo in Merimbula for the weekend and what an eventful weekend it was. The Mambo is a kitesurfing competition held every year in Merimbula (on the border of NSW/Vic in Australia) and is generally a big excuse for a piss up. This year about 250 kiters and windsurfers descended upon the small town and had a big party.


I left work in Auckland at Friday lunch time and drove straight to the airport, big smile on my face in anticipation. I had a reality check at the check-in desk when the clerk told me I didn't have a visa! One long phone call to Canberra later and it turns out that my old working visa was still active when I applied for a holiday visa, then some enterprising person decided that since I held 2 visas it must be a scam of some sort, and cancelled them both!
I eventually got through to the gate, only to be told the plane was delayed by 2 hours because another flight had been cancelled and we had to wait to pick up the passengers from that flight!
I eventually made it to Sydney and surprise, surprise, was told I didn't have a visa by immigration. Another 20 minutes later and I finally picked up my bags and made it through to the car hire desk where I'd booked a car. Well blow me down if I didn't have problems again and was unable to pick up a car. At this point I finally lost my temper a bit and caught a taxi to my old house whilst I figured out what to do, the car hire man's suggestion of getting a train didn't really help my temper much.
I stayed the night in Manly and the following morning managed to catch the 2pm flight to Merimbula (thanks to Caroline for giving me a lift to the airport) and finally made it to my destination at 4pm, about 24 hours after I started the journey.

It was great to finally catch up with my old mates and see what everyone had been up to, of course I'd missed some awesome wind on the Friday although Saturday had been windless.
Several beers later, after a quick, nasty Malaysian meal, I made it to the pub and got into the Mambo spirit.

The following morning, nursing a small hangover, I went down to the beach with Mark and went out in some of the gustiest and nastiest wind I've flown in for a while. It was fun, but most of it was about survival and staying upwind. Of course there was a few who were thriving in the conditions and ripping up some waves. In fact it was bizarre to see a competition where very few people were doing jumps at all, Mambo is a wave riding competition and as such most people were on surf boards.

The day came and went and Mark and I decided to head home before the presentation, Mark was generous enough to offer me a spot in his car to get back to Sydney in return for sharing the driving. It was nice to have someone to chat to on the way back and the time seemed to pass really quickly and before I knew it, we were back in Manly.

One snooze later and Mark was nice enough to give me a lift to the airport at 7am and after another delay, I was finally back in Auckland. Phew.

It was an exhausting weekend and rather expensive (we calculated it cost me $10 per minute I was on the water kitesurfing) but it worth it to catch up with friends and see how everyone is doing.

Can't wait for next year! (But I think I'll book a bit more time off, work allowing)