Around The World In 80 Waves

West of Newport is Cape Foulwind, which was named by Captain Cook who certainly got about a bit – there was a bay named after him in Tahiti too. It was so named because he had so much bother getting his sail boat close to shore due to the unfavourable weather.

Just south of the Cape is Tauranga Bay which is one of the more famous breaks in New Zealand, so it was somewhere I was keen to check out. However when I got there it was completely blown out.

If I had been in possession of a board of my own I might have paddled out to bag the break, but to hire one and join the few intrepid souls who were already in the water would just have been a waste of money because it was little better than a mess of white water.

Instead I headed back to the Cape to check out the seal colony there.

On the tip of the cape was this lovely sign to inform me I was over 16,000 kilometres away from the UK.

I stuck around there to watch the sun go down but was having trouble spotting any seals. Once it was getting dark I headed back to the van but took note of another opportunity for me to get close to some seals later on my travels that one of the locals had shared with me while I was there.