Sweet as bro

Tuesday, 16 January, 2007
early afternoon
Kaitaia, Far North

"Sweet as bro" is a Kiwi phrase that gets used constantly by Rainge, our surf tour leader. It translates roughly as "cool," "sounds good," "catch you later," and the like. "Sweet ace" is also very common, funny when Germans say it because it comes out "sweet ass."

I'm writing from an internet cafe in Kaitaia, near the very north end of the North Island. The Kiwi pronunciation of the town comes out more like "Kay-tau." We're here on our way to another unspellable place for surfing this afternoon.

We came up from Auckland yesterday, after meeting Rainge (Raing-ee) and the rest of our group at the waterfront in Auckland. We loaded eight people into a souped-up range rover with a big metal box ("boot") for luggage on the back and 10 surfboards strapped on top. We drove what would have probably only taken 2 hours on a U.S. freeway but actually took us 4 hours. New Zealand highways leave something to be desired, though they are never boring. Once we got off the motorway onto Highway 1, it was two lanes and constant curves the entire way. Rainge is also a nutzoid driver, and the range rover rides really high, and I was in the middle of the back seat, so I got swung around quite a lot. It was a gorgeous drive though. The scenery once we got out of the city was absolutely stunning. I don't think pictures will really do it justice, it is so green and dramatic. Everything here is green. Green fields, green trees, green water. The forests we came through were leaf trees interspersed with palms of some kind, which look amazing when you look at a hillside spotted with the tops of palms coming through the regular foliage. There were green fields, hedgerows, stone fences, millions of sheep, and load of idyllic little streams with fairy tale trees growing beside them, and cars pulled off the side of the road and families picnicking right there in the verges. It was phenomenally beautiful and I no longer feel any need to go in search of actual Lord of the Rings sites-- you can easily imagine hobbits in any of the fields and elves in any of the forests. At every curve I kept expecting to see a hobbithole in the side of the hill. The hills are not calm and rolling hills like in England,but really steep, sharp, dramatic ones, just springing up out of the lowland. This results in the roads being really steep, in addition to not usually having guardrails.

We came through Whangerei, where we learned that "wh" makes a "f" sound in New Zealand:
"Fahnga-ray." Whangerei is the last major town heading north, probably only the size of Sandpoint or so. A little while later we stopped in Kawakawa for a roadside lunch and to pick up another surfer. Then we came up over the Mangamuka range, home of one of the most insane roads I've ever had the pleasure of driving on. I think we were all a little queasy coming off of it. But just a few minutes off the other side we came through Kaitaia and found ourselves at Ahipara, where our beach house is. The company running the surf tour owns the house, it's great, with a kitchen, tv room and 8-person dorm, and RIGHT on the ocean. Or rather, the Tasman Sea, which is the body of water on the west coast of New Zealand. We stopped quickly to drop our stuff, then took off for our first surf!

We drove to Taipa, which is a beach on the east coast of the island, the Pacific Ocean, a mere 30-minute drive from the opposite coast. It was of course a fantastically beautiful drive, and at the end we all pulled on wetsuits, had a brief lesson on the beach, and then were heading out to the breakers by about 5:30 PM. It was a beautiful spot, and we all got some good surfing in, but the waves were really huge so I was only able to ride the surf, and after my first two times standing up, I had a really hard time. I realized later it was because the wetsuit is just too much weight-- and not really necessary, since the water was, if not quite tepid, not nearly cold enough to make your lips blue after three hours. It was a blast though, and great to be back on a board. My tether snapped at about the point at which I was ready to quit, so I took it as a sign. For those of you who aren't familiar with surfing, the tether is a leash that's attached to the board and then strapped to the rider's ankle. When you're riding a wave, you can get tumbled pretty spectacularly, and you don't want to be wasting energy trying to swim after a surfboard that cuts through the water much faster than a human. So we tie ourselves to our boards, to save ourselves a lot of trouble. The only disadvantage is that if you forget you're tethered to your board, it can get pulled away by a wave and pull your feet out from under you.

Provo and I were both done with the surfing, but we got rid of the wetsuits and headed back out to do some body-surfing until Rainge said it was time to head in. It was the first time I've ever been able to actually swim in an ocean- it was incredibly warm. We all headed back to the house, stopping in Kaitaia for takeaways: take-out hamburgers and fish and chips. We feasted on grease at the house, showered, and spread out on the front deck with drinks and a guitar, enjoying the dark, the stars, and the sound of the surf.

This group of people is fantastic. I don't think I've laughed as much in the last month as I have in the last day and a half. Here's our crew:

Rainge: Our fearless leader. Thirty-something, a fair-skinned (but very tan) Maori (it comes out like "Mary" if you're a kiwi), surfing for about 15 years. Hilarious, with an awesome sense of humour, really laid-back but watching out for all of us. He's our driver, teacher, and clown. He's full of it most of the time, trying to convince us that New Zealand grows pineappelopes and that the big plastic-covered round haybales in the fields are in fact huge rolls of toilet paper.

Sherman: fortysomething, a music tour leader from Memphis. King of corny jokes and punchlines, rookie surfer, and keeper of the coolest hat in the world (I'll take a picture).

Jean: Swiss, late twenties, just finished up six weeks in New Zealand, and just came off the Routeburn Track four days ago, so showed us pictures that made me incredibly excited to see th Alpine country. Just lost his passport before we left auckland, so is stressed out and trying to sort that out while learning to surf!

Kate: the third girl on the trip, a 16-year-old Kiwi from Cambridge, near Wellington. Never surfed before either, but her ability to laugh and have a good time is wonderful. It's great to have another girl around, we can gang up on the guys if they get out of hand.

Ethan #1: 13, from Wellington, been surfing lots before and got a new board for Christmas. He's quiet but does his talking on the waves.

Ethan #2: 15, from North Carolina but his family is living near Kawakawa for the next 6 months. he claims to be bummed out about missing the snowboard season back home, but once we saw him on the waves we realized that he's pretty good out there.

That was the crew for the ride up. When we reached Ahipara, we met up with the rest:

Martin: a short, shaved-head, INSANE twenty-something from Holland. He speaks really good English and is one of the funniest and wittiest people I've ever met.

Dominique: German, randomly hooked up with the Dutch boys to travel around. Rarely says anything but laughs a lot.

Ino: Also Dutch and friends with Martin. Our introduction went like this: "Hi, I'm Liz." "I know." "What?!" "Don't laugh." It took several times before we all realized that his name is actually Ino.

Anyway, with Provo here too it's the greatest group of people I could imagine spending five days with. We're base camped in Ahipara for the next couple days, and then we'll be heading to Cape Reinga ("ree-ainga"), which is at the very north tip of the North Island and is the spot where the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean join hands.

This morning we were woken at 7:30 by Bob Marley and Vanilla Ice blasting from the kitchen and Rainge dancing into our room. We were up and on the waves before breakfast--what a great way to wake up: roll out of bed, change into swimsuit ("togs" if you want the Kiwi expression), grab board, wade through the channel, hike 100 yards of beach, and head out through the breakers. It was bright and sunny by 6 this morning, so it was gorgeous and warm and only Jean wore a wetsuit. I had a great time, the waves were fantastic and I found it much easier to stand without the extra weight of the suit. I even managed to carve a couple times, which means standing up and then steering the board with your feet, riding the crest of the wave. At one point, I was paddling back out and watched a fish swim through the crest of a wave right before it began to break.

After breakfast, we loaded up the rover and Rainge took us on a "tiki tour" of the bay, through "yuppie-para", the other side of the burg where all the million dollar houses are. Then we drove out this high winding road over Shipwreck bay, and the green of the hills against the incredible blue of the sea made the most unbelievable view. The dutch/german boys followed in their car and when we got down to Shipwreck beach, Martin squeezed in the backseat with us and Ino and Dominique climbed up on the boot to hang on up top. Then we drove across the beach and the top of the rocks (which you can only do at low tide), past fishermen and picnickers, around to some crazy advanced surf beaches where you have to jump of the rocks with your board to catch a wave.

We'll probably surf Shipwreck Bay tomorrow. It's a surfing mecca, but no one's up here right now for some reason, which is great- none of the places we've surfed so far have been remotely crowded. At Shipwreck Bay, one wave at a time comes in, and then it breaks right-to-left for 300 meters, and you can ride it all the way, parallel to the beach. I can't wait to try it, it looked incredible, and it's a beautiful little cove. There actually was a shipwreck there, you can see the mast near the beach, and at low tide you can see where the cabin washed up on the shore.

We stopped back for an ice cream in Ahipara, and then came over here. It's great that we get the middle of the day for siteseeing and stuff, we surfed until 9 last night, it was light that long. The sunset on the way back was insane- the whole sky was bright pink. We'll probably hit the east coast at about 4 today, to surf again at high tide.

We've got a few more minutes in town, so I'm going to go scout out some postcards and enjoy the sun. Hello from Provo as well!