Noosa Heads is geographical perfection. A couple of hours North of Brisbane the Coast bends hard left and gives us the Noosa National Park. It’s a surfing reserve. A series of Point Breaks that are pretty darn close to as good as waves can get when the bigger swells wrap around into it. It was first surfed in the late 1950’s. Now it’s surfed all the time by hundreds of people. Hundreds and hundreds of people. In the second half of January I was lucky enough to be one of them. 

If you’re in New Zealand, particularly Auckland, and there’s a surfer in your life, you may have noticed a change in the last couple of days. They’ll be around for a start.

I’m hoping this will be the case, selfishly, for no more than a week.

But here we are, with some respite from the Ocean, both sides, there’s finally no real surf to speak of.

The swell has died on the West Coast. And the East Coast is a bit of a mess.

But prior to this there hasn’t just been surf, there’s been very, very good surf.

On both Coasts, in all sorts of nooks and crannies as well as the more obvious places.

When I’m practising a bit of gratitude, one of the things I’m grateful for is ‘my’ skateboard run. From the intersection of Karangahape, Newton, Great North & Ponsonby Roads – down along Ponsonby and Jervois Road home. I do it whenever there’s a free ride to the top of the hill, which includes taking one of the family cars to the mechanics in Pollen Street, or anyone else driving a car past or close to the top. I’ve been known to catch a bus. On days like today, I’ll even walk. I’ve been doing it for over 20 years.

Continue reading “WORTH IT EVEN IF YOU WALK TO THE TOP” →

We live in strange and terrible times. Stranger and more terrible than just a week ago when they cancelled the Corona Piha Pro. I have it on good authority that the organisers and crew working it got to spend around an hour high fiving and enjoying the realisation that they had achieved what many thought they wouldn’t be able to. The temporary cell towers were up, the camera towers, a grandstand and a kind of VIP area in the car park at the South End. The fridges and food were here. Kelly was here. Womens world champ Carissa Moore was on her way. The beach and the surf were playing ball – the sand had formed with a nice steep bank into the water which had revealed a kind of mini viewing area. Then the whole thing got pulled, first in what has become a long line, but last Saturday somewhat cruelly, we got a taste of just how cool this event at Piha would have been.

Continue reading “THE CORONA VIRUS PRO or MY WAVE WITH KELLY SLATER” →

Saturday morning was a pretty shit surf.

Cruised out to Piha nice and early for the 9 ish high tide, but made a couple of crucial mistakes. Got in the water at the North End along with a ton of other people and although there wasn’t much wrong with the actual surf, a nice wedgey little peak, the rip was instense. Hard core. Firing. Rad. A pain in the arse. The whole pack of surfers in a constant paddle South towards where the nice little peak was. If I want to paddle constantly, I’ll surf the Mangawhai Bar on the outgoing thanks. I figured this is going to get way worse in about 10 minutes when the tide turns, so headed into the sand and down to the South End for the nice little right hander that’s been working just on the South side of one of the world’s most spectacular beach ornaments, Lion Rock. That wasn’t working terribly well and was really crowded. Didn’t really sit in the right place. Got a couple of short ones but hadn’t really found my rythym at all, so pulled the pin and returned to Saturday morning in the city relatively un-stoked. Clutching at straws like “The water’s warm” and communing with nature first thing in the weekend. But even so, it couldn’t take the shine off Tuesday, and Raglan.

Continue reading “MAKING LEMONADE” →

Oh God. It was ghastly.

I put my surfboards under the deck the other day having removed them from their rightful summertime resting place under the hedge on the front lawn. It was traumatic. PTSD for sure. With nothing on the maps to indicate we’ll be getting any decent waves any time soon, I might as well stash them out of the way. Ugh.

Summer seems to have peaked. Specifically, on the 15th and 16th of February, when the North West Swell generated by Cyclone Uesi, which had hovered close to the East Coast of Australia and pumped killer surf into Noosa, Snapper Rocks and Kirra to name a few, arrived on the West Coast of Tamaki Makaurau. It was big, brutal and quick for the Aussies, but 2000 miles away a few days later, it was exquisite.

Continue reading “PEAK SUMMER 2020” →

My quest to surf Raglan more has begun.

Friday’s mission a not quite resounding, but reasonable success. Departed Auckland 0600 and in the water around 0830. Could have been sooner but at that hour I did actually NEED a coffee and an Anzac biscuit is always a good idea. Some sugar always comes in handy in your bloodstream and besides, I like to have a little bit of human contact with the town I’m in if at all possible.

So early morning with some tradies and council workers in Hi Vis and the first of the days many tourists at the cool little Raglan Roast Food Department in Wainui Road on the way out to the points. If your Te Reo isn’t what it should be (please, it should be something by now) Wainui is pretty much ‘Big Water’. It follows that you should always drive down anything called Wainui Road, I’ve explained this before, it’s highly likely that it will take you somewhere a bit special one way or the other: Harbour, river, lake or at best; the ocean with a world class left hand point break.

Continue reading “RAGLAN. THE ONE.” →

It’s taken decades but I’ve finally had a wave on The Omaha Bar. Quite a few actually. What’s unusual about this is that when you grow up on Auckland’s North Shore, surfing Omaha is a given. But it never really delivered, and then on bigger days, being 14 you’d just get pounded by a beach that couldn’t really handle swell and lose your apetite for the place. Then you go West and never come back. I’ve avoided Omaha for years because I’ve always gone further up North rather than commit to that particular peninsula. The surf’s generally bigger the further up the motu you go and the options of Mangawhai & Waipu are close together. And Black Swamp too. I avoid Te Arai simply because nobody else seems to avoid it. And besides, Omaha as a place has never really appealed. It’s a bit, well, Omaha-ey. But that big low just came down the East Coast and changed everything.

Continue reading “OMAHA BAR. LATE TO THE PARTY.” →

From where I’m sitting in the water this morning the sun is in the North, sneaking up over the ridge that at some point is where the Anawhata road passes by. A mist sits in the air, it’s just hanging there in these great golden shafts created by the sun breaking through the different nooks and crannies in the ridge line. The shadows are licorice black. The offshore wind whipping the spray off the breaking waves brings a little extra hiss to the occasion. “Not a bad place to sit” is my go-to opener if I can be bothered talking with anyone on days like this. Because, no matter what happens, how good or bad the actual surf experience turns out. You’re just there. For 5 out of the 7 days of it anyway. Because the Tasman side of Tamaki Makaurau has just outdone itself again.

Continue reading “MIDWINTER CHRISTMAS” →