Around The World In 80 Waves

Mount Manganui is the big rock you can see at the end of the peninsular here and is what the town is named after.

I can immediately see similarities to my home town of Llandudno back home in north Wales which has its own big rock at one end of the bay, called the Great Orme. A few people walk around that to keep fit but it seems like half of the north island are speed walking along the beach then up and down the Mount.

I have arrived late in the afternoon but immediately go in search of a surfboard, because I want to go surfing early the following morning. The waves are looking clean and tempting, and a few questions around town result me hiring this 7’6″ surfboard from the Mount Surf Shop.

By the time I get settled in at my camp site right on the beach there is only half an hour before the sun sets so I crack on with making dinner and wait for the morning. (Only possible after scoring some free rolls from the lady in the burger shop to enjoy with soup – She took pity on my plight because all the retail shops were shut and I needed a little bit of bread to get rid of the supplies in my van.)

I have loads to do the following day so turn in early in order to get moving as soon as the sun comes up.

At first the surf looks great but by the time I have my wetsuit on and am in the water the tide is too high. Whilst it looks pretty it is a crap conditions for a surf. The waves are not breaking until right on the shore, because the water is too deep and I have a couple of nervy hire board inspections after stacking into the sand trying to bag a few.

It isn’t the best wave I have surfed by a long way but I do catch a one or two, and after returning the board I console myself with a dip in the heated salt-water pools located in the town.

I manage some lane swimming before giving up due to feeling like somebody was boiling my face, and spend another half an hour just hanging out like everybody else and soothing myself in the gorgeous water.

After waking up I start the day with a drive from the caravan park into town to see if I can lay my hands on a board.

The friendly people at Kaikoura Surf give me a warm welcome and, as with all surfers I meet, are very interested in my adventures. 

I have a great conversation with them, hire this lovely 9’2″ longboard that will suit the cruisey surf  I’m feeling like having on the water today, and then asked them for directions because I have heard about a fantastic break north of town that will be perfect for that.

The girls in the shop confirmed what I had read and tell me how to find the break easily. “Drive north 5 or 6 kilometres and once you are alongside the railway line pull into the first lay-by you see.”

I head north and sure enough, right on cue the railway line appears and the lay-by too. Straight forward directions which are effective have been in short supply on this trip!

What I hadn’t quite expected was the perfect conditions I found upon arrival. It is a classic right hand point break where the wave wraps around the headland and just keep on peeling for hundreds of metres over the rocks on the shoreline.

I was barely stood looking at the break for ten seconds before I was running back to the van, jumping into my wetsuit, running across the railway line and then launching myself out across the rocks into the break.

I caught loads of rides on the bigger surf board I am using today, enjoying walking the board and getting nose rides. The rides are so long it is quicker and far less tiring to get out and then walk back along the shore than it is to paddle. What a wave!

I have been missing my own longboard at times but this really made up for it. We just don’t get waves like this in the UK.

The scenery you are surfing towards is pretty spectacular too. What a fantastic break. This wave alone almost made the extortionate ferry crossing from North Island worthwhile.

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.

I arrive at Opunake on the Surf Highway a short time before the sun goes down and decide I have had enough of driving for the day. I fill up with fuel so that I am ready for a clean getaway in the morning and then head for the surf shop in town.

I have a great chat with the guys at Dreamtime Surf Shop who sort me out with a great deal for hiring this lovely 8’6″ so that I can get a surf in first thing in the morning.

They also give me directions to the campervan park situated next to one of the many breaks that are situated in the area, which is easy to find.

I could possibly have gone for a cheeky session before it got dark but I chose to enjoy the sun setting over the headland with a beer instead.

I am saving my energy for the incoming tide in the morning and spend the night reading my guide book as well as emptying my fridge of beer.

I can hear the ocean all night and leave the relative warmth of my van a couple of times in the night to see what the waves are looking like, hoping they will be similar at the same stage of the tide in the morning.

There is an electrical outlet to supply my vehicle and I make several failed attempts at tuning in the TV in my van, as well as charging up all my devices and cameras.

I top up the fresh water in my tanks and am even more delighted by the spot I chose when I wake up to it in the morning. One boiled kettle later I am heading over to the sand to check out the waves with a hot cup of coffee.

There are two ladies out, getting a surf before going to work and I see them catch some fun rides so it isn’t long before I have my own wetsuit on. The girls don’t stick around long and for a short while I have the break to myself before being joined in the water by a stand up paddle boarder and a bloke in a kayak.

Neither are either normally a welcome sight when you are surfing because of how many waves they steal from everybody else, but the two guys are pretty cool and there are more than enough waves to go around so we have a laugh in the morning sun. I catch four or five rides right across the bay and am having loads of fun, whooping and hollering along each one. The perfect start to any day.

I have been sent this:

I couldn’t agree more!

Enjoy

I meet up with Anna again later in the day and we go for a cruise in my van to check out the options. The swell has died through the day and I’m a bit disappointed that there is no point getting in at Indicators because the waves there aren’t really breaking. After seeing the epic tube rides caught there a few days earlier I was itching for a slice of that action myself.

It is not to be however, so the best of a bad bunch are the waves on offer are Wainui Beach. We jump into our wetsuits in the car park at the top of the hill and then stroll down to the sand where Anna shows me the channel in the break where you can avoid most of the waves whilst paddling out.

I have no problems getting out the first time and there is barely any wind so the conditions are really clean.

However as soon as I paddle into a few waves on the 8’0″ I have hired I am pearling the nose and then getting the full force of the wave driving me into the sand I’m trying to surf over. I then keep getting stuck inside eating plenty of sand as I struggle back out a few times through the breaking waves.

I do catch a few though and have a fun final session in the Raglan area. Anna is doing better than me and by the time she has got out I have boiled the kettle in the campervan and we can enjoy a hot drink whilst we savour the sun setting over the sea before heading back into town.

After surfing Whale Bay I drop Anna off and get the van rigged for the rest of my travels in New Zealand and try without success to catch up on the blog. The IT issues have become insurmountable using my old hardware so I give it up as a bad loss and after a few beers turn in early.

That inevitably means that I am up before dawn the following day and on my own I head straight for Manu Bay where I am treated to a gorgeous sunrise, whilst I get my wetsuit on. 

Anna was hoping to join me in the water and I also hoped to bump into Flash at the break because he paddles out  there every morning with his son, but neither can be seen so I am on my lonesome.

It is so early in the morning when I wade out over the rocks which I will be surfing over as the tide comes in, that there are only a handful of people in the water. I know it won’t last long because the conditions are PERFECT.

I am back on my game today and a bit gutted that nobody witnesses it. It doesn’t matter though because I’m having such a great surf and there are a few people in the water to have a laugh with.

I lost count of how many waves I caught but it was loads and I was riding from right on the point and then surfing around the coast until I had to jump off or surf straight into the breakwater which pushes out into the sea.

Fantastic session. I’m loving New Zealand.

After a night spent on one of the vans’s seats I am not in the freshest state the following morning, but am correctly told by Apollo that a board for the bed will be delivered later in the day. Once that is sorted my first order of business is sourcing a surfboard.

Sarah and Roddy’s brother-in-law, who is universally known as Flash, actually works in the local surf shop (www.raglansurf.com ) and helps me sort out a great hire deal on one of the locally made Hughes surfboards. Once that is collected Anna (who has the day off work) and I head off to the beach as soon as possible because there is a great swell breaking on the coast.

The waves today are fantastic at all the local breaks: Indicators, Whale Bay, Manu Bay and Wainui Beach. We opt for the less crowded break at Whale Bay that you see here and once more I climb into my wetsuit because the water is considerably colder than Tahiti where I last got wet.

Anna hasn’t surfed here before so the two of us figure out a way to scamper across the rocks lining the shore and then jump onto the back of one of the waves, before paddling madly to get out to the side and around the breaking section of the next ones.

Conditions seem to be perfect for the overhead waves, even if the winds are quite strong blowing off shore, and I paddle straight into the line up, while Anna takes a more tentative approach. Not sure which was the better option but for some reason I am all over the place today and as well as taking a beating from a significant number of waves am really struggling to catch anything, but am having a good time in the water regardless because there is a friendly atmosphere.

We can see people getting 5 second barrel rides along the coast at Indicators and I’m dying for a piece of the action in the waves breaking over the rocks lining the shore. Anna catches a few and I’m feeling a tad embarrassed by my lack of waves until I bag an absolute beauty which I ride all the way in snaking up and down the face. That us until two huge rocks (known as The Pinnacles) appear right in front of me in the break and I have to bail off the back of the board before a few nervy moments getting clear of trouble.

It is good to break my duck but after the rough night’s sleep, travel and taking a beating from the ocean for a few hours I’m shattered and am relieved that Anna feels the same way, so we paddle in.

I later discover that the bay is named after the whales that regularly appear in the line up. Orcas or Killer Whales are particularly common and I have to say I am quite glad that they left me alone while I was in the water. There have been no recorded attacks on humans by orcas in the wild, but even so I think the shock of something sixteen times the size of me, twice the size of an adult Great White Shark and with teeth the same size as my feet appearing suddenly out of the water next to me might literally frighten the life out of me!

The first place I am heading to in New Zealand is a small town called Raglan, which has been famous in surfing circles since it’s waves appeared in Bruce Brown’s classic surf film ‘The Endless Summer’.

The weather is awful and I get completely lost leaving Auckland so it is well after dark and I am tired by the time I pull up at the supermarket there upon arrival because I need to buy supplies.

I walk through the door of the supermarket and immediately bump into Anna at the vegetable section, who was one of two gorgeous Canadian surfers I met all the way back in Oahu and joined me for the first surf of my travels as well as touring most of the North Shore with me back in December.

Neither of us knew the other would even be in this part of the world let alone in town or going shopping, and two minutes either way and we would have missed each other entirely. Nobody else in the supermarket has a clue what is going on and is probably wondering why two people are jumping around hugging one and other only having seen the price of potatoes, but we are super stoked. Such an excellent surprise.

We spend a few minutes catching up on the waves we have been scoring on our different journeys, and I’m disappointed to discover that I only missed also seeing Alexa again by a week because she has just gone home.

“Do you want to come and hang out with me and my friends in our hot tub?” is not a question I have been asked often enough by pretty young surfer girls, and is certainly not an offer I need to consider for long. We complete our shopping and I give Anna a lift back up the hill to her place to enjoy a few beers. Whilst there I am treated to some wholesome home cooked food too. What a welcome. I think I will be liking New Zealand.

However it was a good job I was in a great mood, because when it is time to turn in I discover that  the numpties at the campervan hire company haven’t equipped me with the center-board necessary to make up the king size bed in the van. Denied!!

All credit for the following shots taken from our little aluminium boat must go to Giovanni Copello.

Please liaise with him directly if you would like to use them:

info@copello.it