Kiwi Christmas

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Arrived in Auckland around 9pm not knowing if the Surfing Samurai would have given up on me due to the fact that I was supposed to arrive 6 hours earlier. As I push open the door exiting customs into the free world, I immediately hear “Tim!” and look up to see Tomo nearly fall on the ground with the happiness of relief. We slap hands and laugh as I explain the events that led to my late arrival. Then we load my bags in the tiny silver 2-door Toyota hatchback, strap my board on the roof with Tomo’s, and off we go into the cool New Zealand night. I’m navigating with the road map as Tomo drives us southwest to New Zealand’s most famous surfing town, Raglan.

A couple of hours later we pull into the dark car park that looks out onto the left point break that brought Raglan surfing fame after being featured in Bruce Brown’s classic 1966 surf documentary, “The Endless Summer”. Tired and unsure if we should throw our tents up due to the “No Camping” signs, we break out our sleeping bags, recline our seats and sleep in our tiny rental for the night. We’re awoken about 5 am by a local surfer knocking on our window shouting, “ Ya cant camp here! Betta' not leave ya boards on the roof- some cunt’ll come round and steal ‘em.” So we climb out of the car, stretching our bodies, sore from the awkward sleep in the tiny car. The sun is barely rising behind the mountains, slowly lighting the sky a heavenly pale blue. There are surfers out already, catching head high, slow rolling waves. I can’t surf yet because my board has a crack in the bottom that I need sandpaper to fix. Tomo heads out for some waves as I snap some shots. When he comes back, the local who was knocking on our window is also coming back and starts barking at us about not camping there: “ Ya oughtta' mingle with the locals before ya go sleeping in a car park! Give me 10- no, 20 bucks, I’ll sort ya out a camping spot.” Then he gets into his old Hilux (4runner) and waves a screwdriver at Tomo, telling him he better not paddle up the inside, and then drives off. Some welcome to surfing in New Zealand.

Later on the wind picks up and blows onshore, so we decide to head out of town, southbound to the Taranaki coast. This is our first drive thru New Zealand in the daylight and the scenery did not disappoint. We wind thru hills covered in grass that looks like light green carpet and a shimmering river lazily flows next to us towards the Tasman Sea. I read in a guidebook that New Zealand has 4 million people and 40 million sheep. This is no exaggeration. The green hills are covered with sheep, resembling big fluffy cotton balls. We have two ipods, a charger and a wireless transmitter; when one ipod runs out of battery, the other is ready to go. The soundtrack to our journey: The Shins, Bob Marley, Mason Jennings, Tim Reynolds, Jack Johnson, John Butler Trio, RHCP, MGMT, the occasional Japanese rock song and the intermittent country music tune. We’re singing, banging on the dash, grabbing for the camcorder whenever we gasp at the amazing terrain surrounding us.

We catch a small glimpse at Mt. Taranaki’s snow covered top, peeking thru the clouds as we pull into a campsite at a place called Kopekohui. My camping guide says that it’s a free spot, but there’s a kitchen, bathrooms and showers, so the guide isn’t right. We meet the nice Kiwi owner of the place, pay him $10, and start setting up our tents just as strong wind and rain blow in. As we struggle with the tents, the owner approaches and kindly offers us a small cabin with a bunk bed for no additional charge. So we escape the elements for one night in the
warmth of the cabin and get to charge batteries to cameras and ipods.

The camp is next to a river mouth and looks like it would be a great place to catch some empty waves if only the wind wasn’t blowing 30 knots onshore. The wind hasn’t let up by morning, so we take off to the south, referring to our New Zealand surf guide and our road map in search of an area that might be protected from the wind. After a couple of hours driving the coast highway, pulling off at every road sign that points in the direction of the beach to check the surf, we finally end up in a town called Whanganui. Determined to camp in the wild and pay "nada" for accommodation, we pull our little Japanese motor into a maze of sand dunes, protecting us from the wind and from being spotted by coppers (as they call the PO-lice in this part of the world). We set up our tents, put out our chairs and stay warm by the fire as we make dinner on our single burner gas cooker. First attempt at wild camping is a success! There was still too much wind to surf in the morning. We saw some guys actually surfing the wind swell inside the river.

Back to the northwest we go on the coast highway, making our way to the north-side of the Taranaki coast. We met a Swedish surfer girl at Raglan who told us about camping at a place called Ahu Ahu; so we found our way to this hopeful sounding place and to our delight found a stretch of green grass running along the side of the beach, perfect for camping. We made camp at the end of the road next to a little bridge that crosses over the river, adjacent to the ocean. This place was a bit of paradise. After setting up camp, I quickly pull on my wet suit and run to the surf. The water was not as cold as I expected- similar to southern California in the fall. There were probably 10 others out surfing. I got to chatting to a local guy and then he started giving me waves that he was in position for. “Alright dude, this one’s yours, go, go, go!” Now that’s the kind of welcome to surfing in New Zealand that I was hoping for.

We spent three nights in the little paradise by the river at Ahu Ahu. The surf was decent and we were able to ride waves all three days. We made fires on the beach and cooked sweet potatoes by wrapping them in tin foil and burying them in the coals; collected mussels in the tide pools at low tide; and hung out with another Japanese guy, Mitsu, who has been traveling and surfing Australia for the last couple of years and is now living in his camper van, doing the same in New Zealand.

The time came to make the long drive across the North Island to explore the east coast. We stopped a little more than half way across at a place called Rotorua, famous for its geothermal features and activity. We walked around a park with steaming pools of thermal water and boiling mud pits surrounded by a suburban neighborhood with ranch style houses and kids riding bikes. Had to pay for a camp site again, but not a bad deal as the camp site had natural thermal pools which would cost $20 to visit if we went to the tourist place in town. For $17 we got to sit in the thermal pools, shower for the first time in nearly a week, and cook in a kitchen. Met some nice southern folks from Texas in the camp next door. Most people that I meet tell me they are surprised to meet an American because they have met so few of us in this part of the world. I was glad to meet a few.

In the morning we pressed on to Gisborne, the city billed as the first place to see the sunrise, at New Zealand’s most easterly point. In Gizzy, we found the wild camping spots much more crowded than the west coast, but free camping nonetheless. Our first night was spent at a place north of town called Loiselle’s Bay. It was at Loiselle’s on the morning of Sunday, December 20th, that I caught a wave so fast and so fun, it fueled my addiction to surfing and left me still picturing it and remembering how I felt weeks later. The wave was probably 7 feet (3 feet Hawaiian, according to Tomo). I nearly wiped out because the nose of my board was sinking as I was paddling for it. But the wave picked me up and I hopped on for the fastest wave I’ve ever surfed, making quick turns across the face until the wave was going to close out on top of me and I punched thru and out the back. Uncontrollable laughter of excitement and joy came over me as I came off the wave⎯ a feeling I’ve only felt when surfing, snowboarding in steep, deep powder, and the time we toilet-papered Kevin Tricky’s house in the ninth grade. I recently read a book given to me by Matt Gurren just before I left San Diego. “You gotta read this,” he told me. It’s “West of Jesus” by Steven Kotler. The book is Kotler’s story of traveling the globe in search of the origins of a legend about a mythical surfer who controls the wind and the waves. In describing his adventure traveling in California, Mexico, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Hawaii, he incorporates extensive research he obtained on religion, philosophy, history, neuroscience and psychology through interviewing and reading the work of neuroscientists, psychologists, professors, scientists and surfers. The book is full of interesting information connecting his research to the spirituality and psychology of surfing; But his description of a wave he surfed in Gisborne, New Zealand⎯ the same place where I caught my special wave⎯ is particularly relevant to my surfing quest: “I paddled fast to my left, angling toward the next wave, stroked and stood and felt the board accelerate and pumped once and into my bottom turn, and then the world vanished. There was no self, no other. For an instant, I didn’t know where I ended and the wave began.”

We camped and surfed a few more days at spots around Gisborne and then headed north to Mount Maunganui for a couple of days.

It’s December 23rd and we can only find pay campsites. Not a problem as we are definitely due for showering again. We find a place across from the beach for $10. Finally, I’m able to shower off another week of salt and dirt from my hair and body. We made dinner and cooked some sweet potato fries for dessert. Then I was into my little red tent for some sleep. In the morning I’m doing laundry and speaking with some Maori guys and girls. The Maori are the native people of New Zealand. Descendants of the Polynesians, they have dark features and many of them are quite stout and strong-looking. They are by no means shy people. Deliberate in their speech, a normal conversation often feels like an argument; but I feel this is just a part of their culture. We’re having a conversation I’ve had a few times here in New Zealand that goes like this:

Kiwi: “Where you from, bro?”
Me: “I’m from the U.S.”
Kiwi: “The United States of America?”
Me: “That’s the one”
Kiwi: “Pretty gangster over there, eh?”
Me: “Uh, yeah there’s some gangster areas, but it’s a big country, lots of places”
Kiwi: “Were you there when the Twin Towers went down?”
Me: “Not in New York, but yeah, I was in the U.S.”
Kiwi: “So that President Bush did it. I saw a film showing that he did it, bro.”

Though I contemplate a debate for a moment, I think better of it as I realize there’s no point in me convincing him otherwise.

Mount Maunganui is a busy town, somewhat like Byron Bay, but cleaner and more friendly. There are no waves here in the Bay of Plenty at the moment, but we hike the mount and get some amazing views of the beautiful coastline. On Christmas Eve, we splurged on a campsite right at the bottom of the mount and on the beach. For our Kiwi Christmas Day, I made eggs with avocado and tomato for a Christmas-colored breakfast. Before heading off to Auckland in the late afternoon, I was able to chat with my parents and grandfather (Gramps) via Gmail video chat. The next day I would be flying to Brisbane, Australia instead of the South Island because I’ve obtained a month long freelance job on a yacht headed to Papua New Guinea. Gramps tells me that he was in PNG in 1945 at the end of World War II, that it was 126 degrees Fahrenheit and flies were more numerous than people. I forget that so many of the men from his generation have seen much of the world due to serving in World War II.

Christmas was very uneventful and leaves me hoping to be with family and friends, some place cold next year. We made the 200 kilometer drive back to Auckland. I checked into a hostel in the center of downtown and Tomo drove onto the airport to sleep in the car before taking off on an early flight to Australia. I spent the evening walking around Auckland and made my way to a street called Franklin where all of the residents had decorated their homes with Christmas lights, reindeer and Santa Clauses.

The next day I arrive at the yacht in Brisbane to learn that the plan changed and we would be heading to New Zealand instead of Papua New Guinea. A 4½ day trip across the Tasman Sea landed me back in Auckland. I’m on watch tonight, sitting in the crew mess, typing away and eating cookies as if I never left my last yacht one year ago. I plan to head to Indonesia after a month of washing, polishing, cruising and anchoring.

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