3. The Wairarapa Region: North Island, New Zealand

THE WAIRARAPA REGION
Bob's work ethic is second to none. He's just finishing up his first year of teaching at Massey University. He spent the entire weekend glued to his computer editing manuscripts for journal publications. But even so, there comes a time where a guy's just gotta say, "SCREW IT, LET'S GO SURFING!!"

Monday afternoon, November 20th, we packed up the surfboards and camping gear and headed for the Wairarapas, the mountain range that borders the southeast coast of the North Island. One stop at the New World supermarket in Mana and we were stocked for a few days. We quietly slid out of town via Paremata Road which winds through the Upper Hutt region and on over to the 2 Motorway into the Wairarapas. Let me just say, the scenery anywhere in New Zealand is positively captivating, but this area was particularly mind-blowing. As you look off in the distance, you can't help but be overwhelmed by the sheer vastness of it all. Every shade of green from light chartreuse to deep forest green. In fact, this is the area where they filmed Lord of the Rings. While I confess I might be the last person on Earth who still hasn't seen the movie, I'd rather get on the plane and see it all first hand. This area is also particularly favorable for growing grapes which has spawned something of a mini Napa Valley in the Martinsborough region.

After a couple hours snaking through the winding coast road, we pulled up to Ning Nong reef. All reports called for optimal northwest offshore winds, but we arrived to sizable surf with blustery side shore winds which creating a strong cross chop. There were only two other cars when we arrived, hardly a crowd, but given the wind-blown conditions, it was empty. But much to our delight and amusement, one lone guy paddled out into the boiling cauldron. I guess you could say he was the sacrificial lamb or the proverbial canary in a coal mine. Why bother paddling out ourselves when we can just watch him get tossed around. He gave us a clear indicator on the paddle out, the current, the take-off, a scaled size estimate, and a few hoots as we watched the ocean toss him around like a ragdoll.

We gave Ning Nong a miss and instead set off to check out Lake Ferry. We heard rumors of a peaky A frame wave with better winds. We arrived a short while later to perfect offshore winds but it was a dredging meat grinder with no real exit breaking in about a foot of water with a frothy death pit end section onto dry sand—kind of like a modified Coronado. We watched one remaining lone surfer take off and get a couple rides, all of which ended with an express trip through the spin cycle and a one way ticket to the bottom.

We had a bite to eat and then headed back to Ning Nong reef with high hopes for light winds the following morning. Bob is completely outfitted with the four-wheel drive truck and all the requisite camping gear. We pitched the tent, inflated the mattress, cooked up a meal, made a campfire, and enjoyed a couple of Monteith's Originals. Life was good.


We woke up to every surfer's dream—overhead surf, light offshore winds, and nobody out. This is New Zealand. Places don't get crowded. We took our time, ate breakfast, kicked back for a bit until the tide filled in just right. One Maori guy pulled up and paddled out just before us. He opted to paddle out wide which quickly swept him south. Bob and I took note and decided to time the set waves and just paddle out straight through the guts. It worked. We got swept a little wide, but not nearly as far as the other guy. We just about made it to the peak at the same time.

This was my first surf in REAL waves in some time. I'd been so busy with everything leading up to my departure for New Zealand, plus being sick twice in two weeks, that I'd lost some of the training effect in my paddling muscles. Bob let me borrow his 4/3 mm wetsuit since it was quite cold that morning. I felt like I was towing an anchor with the combined effect of my weakened paddling muscles coupled with a thicker wetsuit.

The three of us surfed all by ourselves for at least a good hour and a half to two hours. Perfect lefthanders peeled across the point with no one else hassling us. We joked around about how crowded it was having to tolerate this "crowd" of three!! The vibe in the water here is second to none. I don't think I've met one angry soul in the water since I've been here. We saw several cars pull up and check it, but for some reason, they left and went somewhere else. A few guys did eventually paddle out, but like our new found friend, they too were very relaxed and friendly.

Eventually the wind picked up and blew out the conditions. We packed up and ventured up the coast to the Tora Reserve. Bob had been there before and told me about the great waves in the region. It's like a surfing playground. One perfect point after another. You pull up, if one spot's crowded, no big deal. You just drive around the corner and there's another point waiting for you.

SMALL SMALL WORLD!!
We arrived to Tora and pulled into one of the few parking spots in front of the main point. While we were checking it out, a guy had just gotten out of the water and walked back to his truck parked next to us. Me being the social butterfly that I am and unofficial mayor of the world, I just say hello to everyone. We had a chat, I asked him where he was from, and he said Mount Maunganui.

I said, "How about that! I was there back in 1998 while passing through New Zealand."

I asked him if he knew of a buddy of mine named Darren Sisson who's from that very area but lived in the apartment beneath me in San Diego back in 2002. I said he was a mechanic and panel beater (car repair/painting).

He said, "yeah, Warrick Sisson, that must be his father." Score 1.

I then proceeded to tell him all about how I'd stopped into a surf shop named Ministry of Surf and how I'd met a really nice guy that owned the place. I said, "yeah, his name was Glenn Sheaf."

The guy was just shocked, "That's ME!! I'm GLENN SHEAF!!" 2 or 2 for the yank!!

We had quite a laugh about the whole thing actually. Then when we put it all together, we realized just how bizarre our meeting really was. In order to appreciate the strangeness of the entire situation, you have to know that:

1.—Mt. Maunganui is approximately 10 hours away from Tora by car.

2.—Out of hundreds, maybe thousands, of surf spots in New Zealand, we both ended up in Tora at that exact moment.

3.—Tora is rather removed and tucked away in the Wairarapas. It's not a major place that attracts much of a crowd.

4.— After 8 years since my last visit to New Zealand, I could have arrived anywhere on the North Island on any day of the year, yet it all came together that I arrived in the southern part of the North Island and just so happened to be quite literally in the middle of nowhere.

5.—He was there with 7 other guys and a magazine photographer doing a photo shoot with some of the young New Zealand rippers. Any of those guys could have made it back to the car before him, yet he was the first guy I talked to and it was Glenn Sheaf, a guy I'd only met for not more than 15 minutes 8 years earlier!! He was impressed with my memory to say the least. I've got a memory like an iron trap, that is true, but damned if I can find my car keys in the morning when I'm in a hurry!!

LIGHTNING DOES STRIKE TWICE
You're probably scratching your head and marveling at the above "needle in a haystack" meeting. Just when you thought the story couldn't get any wackier, it gets MUCH wackier! There was a Maori guy out in the water the first day. I said hello to him a couple times out in the water, but no real conversation. The following morning I was paddling out when I noticed the same guy on my left paddling next to me. We said our good mornings and he promptly introduced himself, "hi, I'm Mark." I asked him where he was from and he said the Waikato region.

"Raglan?" I asked.

—yeah, how do you know that?

"And they call you Stocky, right? You're also a badass soccer player, right?" I added.

—How do you know so much about me? Who are you?"

I told him, "I met you in Raglan when I was there 8 years ago. You worked at the Byrning Spears surf shop right on the main road into town!!"

Stocky just about shat himself! He was about as shocked as Glenn was. What a memory this Yank has!! We reminisced a little bit and talked about some mutual friends of ours from Raglan. From there we proceeded to share perfect right hand point waves with only a few people out. Life was good and only getting better!

The wave at Tora is a fun, workable right hander that peels down the point into a little cove. It's usually uncrowded and lonely where you're actually LOOKING for people to keep you company in the water. I'm not sure if that's more for self preservation though. If a shark comes looking for the buffet line, you hope the entrance point is where the other guys are sitting! If not that, then it's always good to have an extra set of eyes in case you get hurt. You don't want to be that far removed from civilization and have a life-threatening injury.

A case in point: Bob and I were surfing the second morning after enjoying the spoils from the previous afternoon. Bob was the king the day before, completely owning the place on his 6'10". The morning winds were HOWLING, blowing extremely strong sideshore/offshore onto the wave face which made takeoffs extremely tricky and setting a firm rail nearly impossible. We all did a few trips over the handlebars and proceeded to get a bit frustrated. I watched Bob take off on one wave and slip up. I saw him come up and get back onto his board, and assumed he was paddling back out. Another guy out in the water that we'd befriended later paddled up to me saying that he thought Bob might have hurt himself. He said he asked Bob if he was ok, and that he had given the thumbs up gesture. I breathed a sigh of relief and thought he might have gone in til the winds mellowed out a bit, not thinking much more of it at that moment.

I went in later and was shocked to find that his board had smacked him in the ribs. It knocked the wind out of him, leaving him in excruciating pain. He later commented that he thought he'd suffered a pneumothorax (collapsed lung). He did have a red mark on his side, but fortunately, no major gash or spleen hanging out!! It took a few days but he was fortunately ok. I give sign language THE FINGER!

As a short aside, when I injured myself in Fiji, the rest of the crew was back on the boat anchored in the channel, eating lunch, resting up after the morning's session. When I motioned for them to bring the meat wagon over to pick me up, they all thought I was waving them back out into the surf . They later told me they were talking amongst themselves saying, "nah, that's ok, you go ahead. We'll paddle out later." I couldn't scream because the pain was too extreme. The end result: a broken rib. Fast forward to the Tora incident, sorry about that one Bob!!!