Big Bay Bash: Part IV

I think it's safe to say that's not Eden Park. 

And that's not a motor lodge. Welcome to Los Angeles. No chocolate fish here, everyone is on Ozempic.

Work From Pool. Jamie Dimon was right after all.

Always two there are. A master. And an apprentice.

These aren't the steak and cheese pies from the BP down the road.

Suburban SoCal. I mean if you're going to pay extortionate taxes in a dysfunctional blue state run by a crook you might as well get a pool, am I right? And a crook with good hair.

Billionaires Roe. I'm more of a thousandaires kind of guy myself. You'll find those tins in the canned tuna aisle.

If you can't read it, it's probably good.

Venice Beach. Where the influencers hang. What's a blog? Is that like a scroll or something?

By the time you finish complaining about the heat we'll already be back below freezing.

Speaking of influencers, here's how you too can Make American Geek Again.

Engine failure over the Sierra Nevada. I believe the last time a family got stuck in these parts things went downhill when they ran out of stroopwafels.

Luckily a new plane, a new engine, and new bags of chips are available. 

Big Bay Bash: Part III

Mount Doom not looking all that doomy today. Suck it Sauron, go back to your black mold and leaky roof. 

Pohutukawa, the New Zealand Christmas Tree. Santa's signal to change to jandals and a tank top. 

The classic Kiwi motor lodge is as accurate a time capsule as you'll find anywhere. A freezing cold pool, a trampoline that breaks more arms than falls, a friendly column of ants wondering where the Whittaker's Peanut Slab went. Hello 1990s, let's fire up some Britney and party like Y2K is going to end the world.

Now listen up kiddos, there's a time and a place for egg on a burger. The time is circa the early-1990s, the place is a Maccas on the corner of a square in a town so generic the only thing separating it from another version of itself is a hastily scrawled North at the end of its name.

Massey Old Boys. And Girls.

Massey Young Boys. And Girls.

A hint of doom. Sauron must have got his next WINZ payment, time to hit the pokies.

Rise and shine hobbits, there's a long journey ahead.

Luckily Gandalf knows a shortcut. I'll have the McThrowback please. Would taste better in the front seat of a red Corolla, but who knows how to drive a manual these days?

Better food than your national airline. 

A private tour of the National Kiwi Hatchery. Careful kiddos, any more whining and they'll mistake you for a possum. And you know what we do to possums in these parts.

Zorbing. The art of rolling down a paddock in a giant inflatable ball. The kind of thing that gets invented in a part of the world where there's not much going on in the ol' paddock out back.

About as straight as State Highway One.

You survived zorbing. And running around barefoot. Congratulations, you meet the minimum requirements for Massey admissions.

Big Bay South, the crown jewel of J00ster Holdings LLC. Perched on a bluff high above the Manukau Harbor at the tip of the remote Awhitu Peninsula, Big Bay South reimagines the classic Kiwi bach for the Instagram generation. You're not in the 1990s any more folks, no Formica countertops and shag carpet left over from the Muldoon era, just sleek minimalism and a view that manages to make 24 hours on a plane worthwhile.

Milo cereal never looked so good. It always tasted good.

The kind of pitch that calls for a couple of languid overs of slow-medium pace before a lengthy afternoon tea break. Brought to you by Dilmah.

Looks like the captain called for the heavy roller to flatten out the pitch a touch before day 3.

I reclaim this territory from the ants! None shall pass!

The flights are long but the moments are short.

Cheers Aotearoa. You delivered the kind of summer you can't find anywhere else on this big old planet of ours. Until we meet again, you're a beaut.