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met in Sydney were conspiring against us. New<br />
Zealand is beautiful, really beautiful. When you<br />
drive from place to place, coast to coast, the<br />
scenery is amazing. I won’t go into the clichés<br />
to describe it, but if you take spectacular,<br />
breathtaking, awesome, inspiring, put them all in<br />
a sentence and throw in the odd noun, you’re still<br />
nowhere close. Add to that the fact that everyone<br />
kept telling me the South Island was even better<br />
and my theory about the Kiwi conspiracy starts to<br />
make more sense.<br />
You see I live in Sydney where, statistically, there<br />
are more New Zealanders than in New Zealand.<br />
I’m not sure how that works either, but trust me<br />
it’s true. My neighbors in the next apartment<br />
are from N.Z. My mate across the street is a<br />
Kiwi and you only need to go to a pub when the<br />
All Blacks are playing to know that there is an<br />
abundance of New Zealander’s in Sydney. So<br />
why, if New Zealand is as amazing and beautiful<br />
as I have tired to describe, are so many of them<br />
coming to Australia? From talking to most of<br />
them it is about work and the opportunities. But<br />
that still does not explain why you don’t hear<br />
New Zealanders raving about how good their<br />
home country is. Personally I think they are trying<br />
to keep it quiet. I think they are more than happy<br />
to have the majority of Australians head to Bali<br />
each year rather than crowding the line-ups they<br />
love and grew up surfing.<br />
68 may/jun <strong>2012</strong><br />
Next, we arrived in Gisborne, a town with some<br />
rich surfing options. We headed straight for the<br />
beach and pulled up to see a few happy, smiling<br />
cops arresting a few young fellas for selling<br />
weed. The cops seemed pretty relaxed about the<br />
whole thing, as did the guys being arrested. It<br />
seems even getting in trouble with the cops in<br />
NZ can be a good laugh. Anyway, the surf was<br />
totally blown out, the forecast was for more<br />
onshore rubbish and we were left with no real<br />
options if we wanted to surf. Knowing we had<br />
a bit of time up our sleeves before conditions<br />
improved, we took a little detour to visit a friend<br />
of mine who lived in the Hawkes Bay area; an<br />
area not known for it’s waves, but kind of on the<br />
way to somewhere else that was…<br />
Throwing on some true Kiwi hospitality, we<br />
arrived to a home-cooked meal and a long hot<br />
shower (the first of the trip so far). The thing is,<br />
when we picked up the motorhome they showed<br />
us a DVD of how everything worked, including<br />
the toilet and shower, and what was involved<br />
to ‘empty it’. Unanimously we agreed that the<br />
shower / toilet was off limits. The ‘washroom’<br />
then served as a good storage spot for wet<br />
wetsuits instead.<br />
Sitting around at Lea’s place, a mate of hers,<br />
Shayne, dropped by and we started talking<br />
about surfing. Shayne offered to pick us up in the<br />
morning and take us to a four wheel drive access<br />
only beach where there would be a wave.<br />
Stoked on the idea, we agreed to meet him in the<br />
morning and he came through with the goods.<br />
We drove along a beautifully deserted beach<br />
and ran into only two other cars with a handful<br />
of surfers. As the boys jumped in and started<br />
picking off a few waves I asked Shayne where to<br />
stash the keys when I went out for a wave after<br />
I was done photographing. “In the ignition bro<br />
– no one around here’s going to steal your stuff.<br />
Don’t stress – come surf”. Life in New Zealand<br />
is still good, honest and wholesome - that made<br />
me smile.<br />
Leaving Hawkes Bay was bitter-sweet. We<br />
had enjoyed such an amazing time there,<br />
scoring waves with the locals. I also had to say<br />
goodbye to a friend who I would rather see more<br />
frequently. But we had waves to find and more<br />
of the country to see. The boys were hung over<br />
again and as we drove out of Lea’s driveway<br />
I heard Josh from the back of the campervan<br />
“Health starts today boys…”<br />
Our next destination was Taranaki - a mecca for<br />
surfers with its exposed breaks but notoriously<br />
fickle with winds. We knew not to expect much
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