Words by Lewis Kennedy-Hunt.
As a Bondi local I’m pretty accustomed to surfing in thick swarms of fluorescent foamie wielding kooks, but I had my heart set on a journey to somewhere that offered remote waves and a sense of modern day adventure. With this in mind, the idea of a van trip with my girlfriend, Charlotte, around New Zealand’s North Island was conceived.
After landing in Auckland, our first task was to wrangle an all-purpose, adventure vehicle. The ride of choice was an old rental Toyota Hiace with a modest 400,000 plus kilometres on the clock. It boasted a ‘throaty’ two-litre petrol engine that just about carked it at the scent of any hill climb – which was something of a reoccurring issue given New Zealand’s mountainous topography. In-cab features included a one of a kind knee cooling system where a fine mist would spray you when it rained. The steering wheel was askew a good 45 degrees and the extended roof meant that each corner put you on a sickening lean. Aside from these idiosyncrasies though, the van held up with no issues over the two weeks, despite racking up a good couple thousand kilometres as well as one incident involving sizable boulder and the front bumper.
From the starting base of Auckland, we pointed the van to the West Coast in search of a few waves at Piha to wash off the travel fatigue. We were greeted with a fun, two- to-three-foot right rip-bowl with the odd six-foot clean-up set that would loom about once every half hour. The following day, after being woken at 4am by a friendly local shouting “Leave Piha Now” at our parked van, we walked through a rainforest to swim at a breathtaking waterfall. I told Charlotte to give herself a good scrub with the pris- tine water as we prepared for an indefinite period without proper showers. Despite its idyllic scenery, we promptly left Piha for the famed Raglan when we heard that there was a solid swell arriving the following day.
We copped three hours of heavy rain on the drive there but the weather seemed to lift in synchrony with our descent of the shore-side hills, from where we cast our first sights on the postcard views of Manu Bay. The swell hadn’t arrived yet but neither of us needed any convincing before paddling out, keen to get a taste of the wave even if it wasn’t showing its true colours. After murdering a van-cooked curry and NZ beer for dinner, the allure of the empty, pre-dark lineup was too much and I went out for a couple more waves by myself. The following morning, we woke early to groomed six-foot-plus swells roll- ing through the point, as if the ocean had magically transformed overnight. I swiftly chucked the fins in my step-up and made the dicey Lennox-esque rock off just as emergency services rescued two blokes from their capsized boat. Sitting ambi- tiously deep with a single local, I was hungry for one of the thick kegs I had seen spit its guts out from the carpark. Chipping in on the sets, I had a few goes at lining up the section where the wave started boiling and draining over the low tide ledge. After enjoying a few humbling beatings and gaining a greater feel for the wave, I eventually managed two of the better backhand barrels my Bondi head has ever been in. A few more leg-burners way down the point and it was safe to say I was satisfied with my Raglan experience in light of all the hype I had heard.
After waves like that we could have easily spent the entire two weeks soaking up Raglan’s classic surf-town ambience, but the instinct to roam NZ was too strong and we were soon packing up; our sights set on famous Surf Highway 45. After suffering through the age-old struggle of a day spent fruitlessly checking waves, we eventually resigned ourselves to surmounting New Plymouth’s Paritutu rock for some views of the sunset. As it turned out, the striking volcanic mountain offered only a crude path carved through the stone to its summit, lined with a sinister chain for grip as the death-defying drop into the ocean loomed below. It’s safe to say we were happy to get off the thing.
After another early rise we hit Highway 45, keen as ever to explore the wave-rich coastline the road spanned. Before long, the endless roadside farms gave way to ocean blue and we laid eyes on a playful right-hand point break known as Stent Road. We spent the day trading two-to- three-foot runners with no one else out, only returning to shore for food and water. A day of surfing like that made me fanta- sise about the type of surfers we might become if we had those waves every day instead of crummy Bondi closeouts – an interesting hypothetical to ponder as we enjoyed a sunset beer from the van in Opunake that night.
With some solid surfing under our belt our appetite for waves was at an all time high, but our enthusiasm took a sobering blow when we woke to a stiff southerly ripping through the van. To our pleas- ant surprise however, after just a short drive down the coast, we stumbled upon a dreamy, wrapping left-hand point break with yet another empty lineup. Before I could ask Charlotte to pinch me, we were trotting through a farm in our wetties to get down to the beach. The long paddle out felt eerily sharky in the murky-brown water but the sight of endless, perfect lefts was enough to numb our fears. Trading wave after wave with the snow-capped Mt and sifting through onshore slop in hopes Taranaki looming behind our tiny cliff-top an was an experience I won’t be forgetting in a hurry.
Following the epic session, we sat in the van sipping on hot coffee and watching the hypnotic lefts continue to wrap down the boulder-lined point. We shared the moment with the towering mountain and truck by a genuine sense that this was exactly what we had come to New Zealand for. In true surf trip fashion, our run of good waves came to a swift halt. The highlights of the next few days included being able to see more than 20m through the mist and rain, as well as standing outside for more than five minutes without being drenched to the core. A huge storm had whipped up and we decided that we may as well use the opportunity to turn inland and charge through the weather to the East Coast. Once there, we cringed with disappoint- ment as we passed a handful of Gisborne waves we’d heard about which were all but being torn apart by the wind.
After three days of driving through the rain wave after wave with the snow-capped Mt and sifting through onshore slop in hopes Taranaki looming behind our tiny cliff-top of a surf, we were deflated and made a last van was an experience I won’t be forget-minute decision to go inland to Rotorua, . a popular tourist stop famous for its geothermal activity. That arvo we soaked in a hot spring called Kerosene Creek, which was pleasantly bath-like, although it left us smelling worse than when we had entered and also made Charlotte’s jewellery turn black.
Finally, the weather was showing signs of clearing up so we headed for Whitianga where we had arranged to stay with family, savouring the stunning Coromandel countryside as we drove in. After a week of fast- paced ‘van life’, it felt great to be able to relax in one place and we slowed the pace right down with a few beers at the local pub. Perhaps the biggest motive of this leg of the trip was the opportunity to get out in my family’s boat for a chance to catch some Snapper. Fishing is a real passion of mine and I was super keen to try my luck in the famously well-stocked NZ waters, so we set off from the harbour in the morning. Charlotte proceeded to outfish me, bagging a solid Snapper and John Dory within minutes. Meanwhile, I only managed a few smaller models that would have looked more at home caught off a Sydney Harbour ferry wharf. Nonetheless, and despite a slightly deflated ego, we left Whitianga with a few cryovacced bags of fresh produce and continued on our journey up the coast.
After a tip off from a Whitianga local, we headed for Mangawhai heads where we found a classic A-frame river mouth with a take-off spot way out to sea. After reassuring Charlotte that there wouldn’t be any sharks around I ate my words when I spotted a bronze whaler tailing through the waves behind her. Without me announc- ing exactly what it was I had seen, she seemed to work it out pretty quickly when I suddenly told her to paddle toward the beach, thus ending a promising session prematurely.
With shark fever in the back of our heads, our final intention for the remaining few days of the trip was to reach the most northern tip of the island before heading back to Auckland. On the way, we visited the fabled Shipwreck Bay, a sand bottom point break known to boast some of the world’s longest lefts on its day. However, the one-foot slop we arrived to didn’t do the wave much justice. Instead, we found ourselves watching the locals drag race up and down the beach on motorbikes, tear- ing up the sand with their fearless toddlers sitting on the handlebars.
Continuing on, the landscape steepened and narrowed and the earth seemed to fall off into the ocean on either side of the road as we edged closer to the tip of the peninsula. But once again our agenda was interrupted by hopes of waves, prompt- ing us to stray down into Tapotupotu Bay. I spent some time trying to wrestle a few deathtrap slabs on the shallow bombie out from the beach before we finally got back in the van and completed our trip to the tip. Once there we marvelled at the 360 degree views of ocean and farmland from the mountain top car park before hiking out to the lighthouse to contemplate the colli- sion of the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean. A fitting spot to reminisce on all the esca- pades we’d recently had. It was funny to think that somewhere just over the horizon of seemingly endless water was the hustle and bustle of Bondi that we had left only weeks ago. After leaving New Zealand and arriving in Sydney, we weren’t stoked to discover our boards had been lost by the baggage handlers. Perhaps it was a sour final note, but the trip had been everything we’d hoped for when we left for NZ. We were even content to have a few days out of the water, blissfully aware that we’d had more empty waves and good times than just about anyone in the world over the last two weeks.
