17. Taranaki Peninsula: Coast to Coast Green Felt Pool Table

This episode documents a quick surf trip up to the Taranaki Peninsula. When it's good...it's really good!

More photos at: http://nzphotoblogue.blogspot.com.
Video at: http://nzvideoblogue.blogspot.com.

SURF TIL IT HURTS
My entire body feels like one big exposed throbbing nerve right now. After scoring a couple days of epic surf along the Taranaki coast, this is anything but a complaint! I like to consider it something of a temporary trophy representing our success in pulling together a last-minute surf trip and then perfectly nailing the conditions just as they all came together in perfect harmony.

SPONTANEOUS MISSION
Bob and I carpooled into the city early Thursday morning, opting to get work out of the way early with hopes that there might be a wave later in the day. He sent me a few emails with internet links to the various satellite images. These show the storm systems as dark orange spots funneling up the Tasman Sea wind tunnel. If you’re savvy enough to interpret the data right, you can score some pretty good waves with relative precision. On the way home, we pulled off at the New World supermarket in Mana for a few things and agreed to pack up our boards and make a spontaneous surf mission of it.

HURRY UP AND WAIT
We hit the road around 5:45 p.m., just amping and bouncing off the walls with all the fervor of fully grown ADD children. Surf stoke has a way of bringing out the animal in all of us. We dealt with the tail end of the day’s rush hour traffic heading up to Paraparaumu. After that, we expected smooth sailing all the way to Taranaki. Yeah right.

As the road wrapped around to Waikanae, the traffic came to an abrupt stall. Bob and I were looking at each other as if to say, “What the *&%#? There can’t be rush hour traffic this far north on a Thursday evening!” We proceeded to inch along for the next several kilometers with no visible end to the traffic in sight. A few ambulances and police cars zipped past us, so we figured it was an accident. We just relaxed a bit and went with the flow, hoping that all parties involved in the wreck were still alive—we’ve had a sharp increase in traffic fatalities lately. By the time we got to the wreck, we could see that a station wagon collided head on with a bus. Fortunately, it looked like everyone was fine. No body bags or blood strewn across the highway.

We stopped off at Himitangi to have a surf before dark, but were greeted with small sloppy surf and a bright yellow warning sign alerting us to blue bottle—Portuguese man-o-war—infestation. We gave it a miss.

SO HOW BAD’S THE FOOD?
Hunger pangs got the better of me after a couple hours on the road. In my surf-induced haste to get out of the house, I didn’t eat enough to fill my hollow leg. I was about to chew Bob’s right arm off just as we pulled into the tiny little town of Patea. We pulled over and asked the shop keeper at the local milk bar if there was anywhere to grab a feed. She told us the pub next door had food up until 10pm. I got a laugh when Bob asked her, “so how bad’s the food?” We glanced over only to realize that the pub was actually a Masonic tavern! One look at this place and we were feeling like we were somewhere in the deep redneck south. Not quite what we were expecting for New Zealand!

YOU BOYS LOST?
We decided to be a little adventurous and poke our heads in anyway. The kitchen had a separate entrance so we walked up to the window to place our order. Eventually, no one showed up so we walked through the crowd to the bar for assistance. I was in a pair of ratty board shorts, a t-shirt, and barefoot. All the locals were sitting around with a beer in one hand and a pool stick in the other. It was like something out of a cliché Hollywood B-movie where the strangers come to town and all the town folk drop what they’re doing, staring and glaring as if to say, “hey, who let THESE outsiders into our town?!” But no one said anything to us. They looked more curious than threatening, this motley crew of white kiwis, Maoris, pacific islanders, and Asian immigrants.

WORLD NEEDS DITCH DIGGERS, TOO
The bartender walked back to the kitchen with us and, sure enough, there was the green-haired church lady waiting to take our order. Bob ordered the Hawaiian burger and I went for the chicken sandwich. I was pretty hungry so I decided to order a half a scoop of chips. On second thought, make that a full scoop. I tried to get the lady to change it over to a “full scoop of chips.” She just looked at us, back down at the paper, back at us again, as if trying to wrap her head around this obviously cumbersome request. So I mouthed it out the way you try to teach a pre-schooler to pronounce words. Not a h-a-l-f a s-c-o-o-p. One w-h-o-l-e scoop. Eventually we convinced her to cross off the ½ and make it one scoop. I thought we were going to have to tear off the sheet of paper for her and make her start over again. But the story doesn’t end there.

10 MINUTES AWAY?
After we ordered, I asked her where the toilets were. She replies, “oh, about 10 minutes.” I’m thinking to myself, “she probably didn’t hear me right.” So I asked her where the toilets were again, to which she replied, “oh, about 10 minutes.” Not quite sure what was going on inside that head of her, but she was a real kiwi treasure.

DON’T UPSET THE NATIVES
Bob ordered us a couple beers while I ventured off to the toilet. Some of the locals immediately called me out on my bare feet. “Hey mate, don’t let the owner see you walking around here without shoes. He’s a real bastard! He’ll kick you out!” So I said, “yeah mate, thanks for the tip, I’ll look out for him.” A daunting challenge considering the bar was full of people and I had no idea what the guy looked like. After relieving myself of a kilo of body weight, I walked back towards the bar and was again reminded by the same local that I “should be wearing shoes.” I obliged and went back to the car to put on a pair of jeans and shoes. I didn’t want to end up on the business end of an angry mob of Patean locals.

When I came back in, Bob had already ordered us up a couple Lion Reds. We stood around for a bit just observing the locals in their natural element. I think there was a bit of reciprocity in that observation, though, as we could tell people were wondering who the obviously lost outsiders were, stumbling into such an obscure hole in the ground.

THE MAGNIFICENT PETER READ
A minute later, a guy comes up to us and says, “how ya goin’ boys? Ya findin’ everything alright?” So I gave him my best disguised Kiwi accent, “yeah mate, how ya goin’?” I fooled him for a few seconds, but he eventually caught on that we weren’t from New Zealand. He introduced himself as Peter Read, owner of the tavern. I told him we decided to stop at his fine establishment for a little grog and grub en route to the fabled surf spots of the Taranaki peninsula. I was asking him if there was anywhere to camp in that area and he said, “aw mate, why don’t you just camp here on our property. The grass is nice and soft.” He took me out to the side of the bar and showed me where we could set up. Then a second later, he says, “no, you know what? Even better! I’ll take you around back to my private back yard! No one will bother you there.” So he showed me his little hidden utopia behind the tavern. Bob and I considered it but decided to pass anyway since the music was still pumping. We were looking for something a little quieter.

DEEP FRIED PARTICLE BOARD
Our food eventually arrived in a most anti-climactic manner. My chicken patty was obviously previously frozen, part organic proteinaceous matter, part sawdust/particle board, dipped in egg batter and bread crumbs and deep fried to a golden brown perfection. It tasted like shit, but I was so hungry, I ate it. Much to our amazement, we did, in fact, receive one whole order of chips.

DECEPTIVE FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Bob and I marveled at how profusely friendly everyone was at the pub. We struck up a conversation with a Maori guy who was obviously not a surfer, but told us that the waves in his town were the best in New Zealand. He looked like he’d had a bit too much grog so we just nodded and agreed with his every word.

SAD GOODBYES
Peter was even nice enough to walk us out to the car! But before disappearing into the night, I refused to leave without a photo of this place! He was good natured about it and agreed to get in the photo. His last words to us were, “you boys stop back some time. I’ll shout (buy) you a couple beers!” I think we were both a little bit misty-eyed and moved by the whole event. Bob and I just shook our heads as we drove off, reflecting on how markedly different the vibe is in country New Zealand compared to the cities.

PUMP YOU UP! OR NOT!
We zipped through a few more microscopic towns before finally hooking a left on some random road we hoped would be remote enough to pitch an inconspicuous tent. The earthy farm scent wafted through the midnight air as we approached the end of the road. There were a couple of cars with their tents already pitched, so we did our best to tread lightly and not make too much noise.

When we pulled out the tent, we realized we’d forgotten the pump to blow up the air mattress! I figured Bob and I had slept on enough airport floors in our day that we’d be able to handle it. We found a sandy patch to set up on, so I thought that would provide just enough “cushion” to get through til morning. I must be getting soft because I will confess it was a rough night of tossing and turning. Plus the ground was just cold enough to suck out any remnants of body heat that remained. I can’t feel too sorry for Bob, though, who enjoyed comparatively peaceful slumbers in his high-tech state of the art Mamut sleeping bag!

The sound of the ocean lulled us to sleep. The amalgamated smell of both farm and ocean really punctuates the New Zealand surfing experience. For that matter, this entire country is one big farm surrounded by water! Bob told me he’d heard some tidbit that no matter where you go in New Zealand, the farthest you can get from the ocean is about 140km! What better place for a surfer to live!

Woke up to the majestic sight of Mount Taranaki off in the distance. It’s a live volcano that must have a history of blowing its top as evidenced by the presence of black volcanic sand all over the place.

MICROSCOPIC WORLD STORY!
In yet another small world story, Bob and I struck up a conversation with the guys camped out next to us. They had obvious English accents so we asked them what part of Mother England they were from. The guy said, “I’m from Bude.”

I said, “Oh, I’ll be damned! I was in Bude back in 1999. I stayed at a guy’s house named Lee Robertson in neighboring Crackington Haven. He was an editor at Surfer’s Path Magazine at the time and we brokered an arrangement for me to write an article while at the little coffee shop on the beach.”

The guy was stunned! He came over and quite literally shook my hand. He said, “My mother OWNS that coffee shop!” And he said he knew Lee, to boot. Unfortunately, I didn’t catch his name. Sorry to disappoint you, Lee. If you know the son of the owner of that coffee shop then that’s who I met. Whew, my world’s getting smaller and smaller!!

REFUGEE FROM GEORGE DUBYA’S PRISON CAMP
The surf was rather marginal at our chosen camp site, so we packed up and hit the road for some of the better known spots. On the way, we stopped off at a coffee shop in the quaint little beachside town of Oakura. The owner of the place is an American ex-pat who looked to be in his 50s. He was originally from Seattle but had been living in Hawaii before making the move to New Zealand three years ago. In short, he also had disagreements with the direction of the country under George Dubya Inc. and decided to do something about it. He pulled roots and put his dollars into the Kiwi economy instead. And his hot chocolate and muffins are pretty good, too!

THE FABLED STENT ROAD
We pulled up a short while later to the famous Stent Road. This place gets a lot of credit internationally for being a world-class wave, so we decided to have a closer look. Much to our amazement, there were only a handful of guys out and another crew of guys in the carpark contemplating it.

Bob and I quickly suited up to beat the rest of the guys out into the water. Less the merrier when it comes to crowds. On our way down across the rocks, five guys exited the water, leaving just one lone girl out in the lineup. The three of us surfed overhead waves by ourselves, but not for long. We all caught a few good waves, enough to entice the guys from the carpark to go for a paddle.

SILVERBACK ALPHA-MALE
By about 20 minutes into the session, there were about five or six of us trading off waves. One Maori surfer, in particular, paddled around the line up like a strutting peacock with his chest sticking out, as if claiming himself alpha-male. He felt like he was entitled to catch a wave and then paddle right back out and past everyone to the peak—a sign of poor manners and disrespect to others politely waiting their turn. Bob and I had a chuckle over this and quickly dubbed him Every Wave Dave (EWD). But that wasn’t enough, we took it one step further and started referring to him as the Silverback Ape Alpha-male.

HEY TOUGH GUY, NICE VOICE!
I will confess, he was a good surfer. Then again, the rest of us were out there holding our own just the same but you didn’t see any of us carrying on like greedy first-graders cutting in front of the line. Finally, I’d had enough, so in my rosiest voice, as he was paddling back to the peak, I stopped him for a chat. I said something to the effect, “Yeah, you’re getting some nice waves out here. You always seem to be in the right position. Are you the Enforcer here? You’re the alpha-male!” I said it in such a friendly voice that I don’t think he caught onto the sarcasm. In fact, Bob and I laughed out loud at the whole thing afterwards because the whole alpha-male comment blew right over his head. We don’t think he understood what we even meant! To make the story even funnier, the guy had a voice like Mike Tyson, that real weak, effeminate voice that is a complete mismatch for the rest of his burly body!

MUPPET SHOW COMES TO STENT ROAD
The rest of the guys were pretty cool. One of them confided to me that when they saw us pull up in the carpark, knowing nothing about us, they just grumbled to each other, “Who are those guys? Aw, just a couple of muppets!” But after they saw us catch a couple waves and realized we had enough skill to be contenders in the line up, then they cooled their jets and welcomed us.

MELLOW LOCALS
We all had a chat at one point or another, asking us where we were from, what we were doing in New Zealand, etc. They were all great guys with easy dispositions, letting us work into the peak without any hassles. A couple of guys looked like a couple of bruisers with their shaved heads, but once we got talking to them, realized they were quite harmless. In fact, they even hooted us into a couple waves.

SHALLOW
Early in the session, Bob asked me if I thought it was shallow. Up to that point, I hadn’t seen anything too critical, so I commented that I thought it was pretty safe. The tide continued to drop during our session creating numerous boils (shallow spots) throughout the line up. After a while, the previously perfect peeling right-hand walls started sectioning up and closing out, so if you took off too far back, the wave would leave you in the dust and buried in the whitewater.

ROCK YOU LIKE A BOULDER
Bearing in mind my previous comments on safety, I took off on one wave in particular just a little bit too far back and was forced to straighten out into the flats. Just as I did, the water literally sucked dry off a big rock completely exposing it. I kicked my board away and quite literally landed ON the rock on my side/right ass cheek, skidding across it and back into deep water! I was shocked! I couldn’t believe what had just happened. I quickly scurried back onto my board and into the paddling position, soon realizing I was surrounded by rocks and boils everywhere. I fortunately skirted through the next couple of waves and back into deeper water. I paddled back out to Bob and was like, “Bobbay, you ain’t nevah gonna believe what just happened to me!”

NO COMPLAINTS
We proceeded to surf Stent Road for three hours, quite literally til it hurt. The tide eventually got too low and the perfect waves we’d had upon first paddling out soon deteriorated to garbled, sectioned out leftovers. Considering the crowd was so small, Bob and I both got out of the water with big grins on our faces! Frankly, days later, I’m still shocked that we got it as good as we did with so few people!

THE CAMPAIGNER
Bobby continued to razz me about my gregarious way of just approaching complete strangers and befriending them. He nicknamed me the “campaigner” because from a distance, I appear to conduct myself like a politician on the campaign trail. I felt compelled to turn it into something of a magic trick. This, of course, begged me to get into character with pre-approach quips such as, “Hi, nice to meet you! Can I count on your vote come election day?” Or, “hello ma’am, that’s a lovely baby. Do you mind if I get a picture of me kissing her forehead?”

STEP ASIDE. LEAVE IT TO THE POLITICIAN
All jokes aside, playing the role of campaigner has been quite helpful in breaking down barriers and allowing us to surf some fun waves in peace. In fact, some of the local guys in the water felt comfortable enough to share the location of some secret surf spots. Short of drawing us a map, they were quite open with the information! In today’s surfing world, surfers are not the type of people who go around spilling the beans about their favorite spots to total strangers!

BAD REP: HIGHER BAR TO JUMP OVER
The other advantage of being a campaigner is regarding the sad state of America’s tattered reputation overseas. No matter what your political views from within the United States, here in New Zealand and around the world, George Bush, President Cheney and their cronies are viewed as imperialist terrorists who have single-handedly upset world peace with their contrived oil war in Iraq. This, however, leaves Americans abroad with a much higher bar to jump over when it comes to making friends. I always have to justify myself before anyone will let their guard down against this potentially evil American. Usually after a few minutes of conversation, they lighten up a bit. The recent bicoastal anti-war demonstrations in the U.S. were quite well-received by the Kiwis and Australians.

CIA AGENT
Bob and I were feeling pretty good after that first session at Stent Road, but it was barely noon and we were ready to keep charging hard while we could. While doing campaign duties after our first session, I was able to get some sensitive information out of a local surfer. He gave us the local scoop for how to get to the fabled waves of Kumera Patch, where to park, etc. Perhaps I should become a CIA agent and move down to Guantanamo to torture a few inmates. If anyone can get sensitive information out of a surfer, then prying it out of a terrorist is a piece of cake!

KUMERA PATCH
We pulled off the main highway down yet another remote farm access road. From there, it’s about a 20 minute walk to Kumera Patch along molten hot volcanic sand down to the point. Good thing Bob and I packed our booties. This coastline is harsh on bare feet!

MOVING WALKWAY
We arrived to the surf spot a while later and noticed only four guys in the water. There was a strong stream running out into the ocean, causing a strong sideways rip current. Perfect. Rather than walk down the point and paddle out where the other guys were, we jumped into the rip and let the current sweep us down into the take off spot—kind of like having a moving walkway do all the work for us!

We proceeded to surf for the next two hours until we were completely spent. After my first wave, a rather long one, I cut out of the wave and started paddling back to the peak. Bob and the last remaining guy seemed to be a mile away! The current was still strong and paddling against it was an exercise in futility. After 10 minutes of digging in and scratching for the peak, I felt like I wasn’t getting any closer! It was like I was paddling in a swimming flume! I did eventually make it back out but I was still exhausted from the first session at Stent Road. This was just further abuse to my body—and I loved it!!

TIME STOOD STILL
Bob and I walked back to the car completely spent. The sun was still strong and high in the sky, beaming down with maximum summer strength. It seemed like an eternity since we woke up that morning. It was like two full days had passed! I commented out loud that it was like time had literally stopped dead in its tracks for us! The living in New Zealand is like that. There’s such a high quality of life here that it’s easy to get lost in it. In fact, just two days ago, International Living Magazine released it’s top countries to live in, with New Zealand pulling a respectable 4th place behind France, Australia, and the Netherlands. And I’m here to tell you, it must have been a close race!

SHOCKING SESSION
Unfortunately, the lulling timeless beauty of New Zealand was short lived and was promptly shocked out of me—literally. I took my wetsuit off and flicked it over the nearby wire fence. I realized I still had zinc oxide sun block smeared all over my face, so I reached over to wipe my face on my wetsuit and was nearly knocked flat on my ass! I felt the most profound shock in my neck, so much that it felt like someone had unleashed a baseball bat on my C7 vertebrae! I stumbled around for a second completely dazed, still unaware of what had just happened. I thought I had tweaked my neck or something. I figured I was getting to that age where things like that happen once in a while. I touched the suit once more but was delivered yet another shock! I soon realized there were two fences and one was electrified!

240 VOLTS OF PURE FUN
A local fisherman, Alan Swain, happened to be nearby and offered me his fiberglass fishing rod to lift my suit off the offending electrified wire. Damn good thing he was there because I had no idea how I was going to get it off the live wire! Alan commented a moment later, “yeah mate, that’s 240 volts you just had shoot through your body. If the current would have hit you just right, it could have stopped your heart.” At least I would have died happy, albeit a cruel irony to a most poignant last surf session.

Alan was nice enough to tell us where Rebel Sports was—he worked there—so we could buy a mattress pump. I wasn’t in the mood to sleep with a rock or log wedged in my back again, so we high-tailed it up to New Plymouth, got some food, cooked and ate in Oakura, and then raced back to the surf before dark.

GRAVEYARDS
We arrived to a surf spot named Graveyards just before dark. By then, most guys were getting out of the water, but the waves were still overhead and reeling down the point. I did my campaigner act on another surfer walking by who promptly gave us the inside scoop on the nearby spots. Bob and I were both sore from the days previous two sessions, so we decided to set up camp and just wait til the morning session—plus my neck was still a bit tweaked from the unexpected shock a few hours earlier.

DEATH WARMED OVER: HOW APPROPRIATE
We found a great little spot next to a stream running out into the ocean. The combined sound of the trickling stream and waves crashing from afar offered up nature’s perfect lullaby. I can honestly say I slept like death warmed over. Bob even commented the following morning that I didn’t move all night. I swear I woke up in the EXACT same position I was when I went to sleep.
PACKED HOUSE
We surfed the following morning, but it was a Saturday and, by then, the swell was no secret. The car park looked like a car dealership with cars and trucks parked everywhere. We paddled out into a bit of a crowd and proceeded to watch a steady procession of guys make our acquaintance. The tide was dropping and the wind was getting stronger, so we eventually decided to stick a fork in it and call it a trip. We checked a handful of spots along the way back to Wellington, but nothing was hitting the reefs quite right.

TIL NEXT TIME
We got home several hours later, both feeling extremely blessed at the shining success of our mission. Wellington isn’t particularly well-known for its surf, so leaving town and driving four hours for the simple joy of riding a wave is always a risk. We both surfed ‘til it hurt, something of a figurative and literal reference to “getting it out of our system” so we could focus on work this week. And God knows, we’ve got plenty of it to hold us over until the next spontaneous surf mission!