Five things to love about being a surfer in NZ
I was asked recently to nominate five things I love about being a Surfer in New Zealand. I’d never really thought about it, mainly because I don’t have much of an option. Especially not now. Thanks Covid 19. But anyway, here we go.
What we have is a shitload of coastline facing every conceivable direction on a group of islands down at the bottom of the world. A few days before it’s pumping at Cloudbreak, or Southern California fires for a week, it hits New Zealand.
To be fair, I can only speak with any kind of authority from an Auckland persepective. The idea of the Kaikoura Coast, The Mahia Peninsula or Taranaki are as exotic and exciting as Mexico or Bali, except I can go by car if I ever get the chance. I’ve never got to surf any of them on a good day. I’ve never surfed in The South Island at all.
So, number one on my list:
No matter who you are, I’d say there is still a ton of stuff left to discover in New Zealand.
It doesn’t count until you get it good. A big swell has been hitting the East Coast for a few days now. I surfed kind of semi up north, it was OK. Way up north was maxing. My neighbour and his mates got pummelled down in The Coromandel. Whanga Bar would have been firing, The Mount too. I would like to have seen the rivermouths on the Northern Side of East Cape, between Whakatane and Te Kaha. Gisborne of course would have been all time, and I would dearly love to see the right hand point at Te Awanga working again. And we’re only halfway down one side of the north island, not even probing for secret spots.
Number two:
So we’re halfway down one side of one island and haven’t even mentioned the other side. So that’s the second great thing: Two coasts. And in Auckland especially, they’re really close together. I surfed the West Coast on Friday and the East Coast on Saturday. Generally what happens is the system that generates the offshores for the West Coast pushes a bit of swell into the East, time it right and you can have two completely different surfing experiences on the same day.
Number three:
Raglan. It’s in The Endless Summer. It’s a world class left hand point break and it’s about 2 and half hours from my place. I’ll be there Tuesday.
Number four:
Driving. I love driving to and from the surf. Of course I’d rather walk, but you learn to appreciate the drive. The places you stop. The things you see. Tunes. Customising your car over time into a rickety old surf truck with the idiosyncrasies only genuine wear and tear can provide. The memories of familiar roads. Frog rock on the way to Piha. The Karangahake Gorge if you go that way to The Mount. The way that The East Cape is so reminsicent of The North Shore of Oahu. And that place driving up north down that big stretch over the Pohuehue Viaduct where, as a teenager, the whole rack assembly flew off the top of the Mini, got dragged down the road (because the excess rope was inside the car) and ploughed into a post - completely destroying, among others, my beautiful 5 8” white, Saltwater Surfboards single fin. That happened about 30 years ago. It replayed in slow motion in my head yesterday, just like it does every time I go up north.
Number Five:
Aside from very occasional shark action, the only dangerous thing in the water is the water itself and other humans. The sharks are few and far between and get a disproportionately large media profile. You can get a mildly irritating sting from a jellyfish, maybe a stingray if you’re really unlucky, but that’s about the extent of it. I got stung or bitten at Noosa and spent 15 minutes sitting downstairs in the surf club with my foot in a bucket of water waiting for my nervous system to seize up or for something to burst out of my chest and scuttle away along the beach. The biter remains unidentified but I lived through some fairly excruciating pain.
In New Zealand, on the other hand, you can skip through the long grass barefoot on the way to the beach without fear of attracting the bite of some mysterious bug or reptile and dying any one of a number of agonising deaths. Just another one of the reasons I love our hilly little rainy islands.
