Finally Wet!

After camping up in a campsite in Whananaki the evening before I had awoken before the sun while Emari appeared to be sleeping. I fired up the range to get the coffee going, pulled out some bowls for our "Sanitarium" Cereal, a banana pulled down from the top shelf. By this time Emari had stirred and climbed down from our overhead sleeping accommodations. We ate and made a plan to drive "just one hill north" to Moureeses. It wasn't big but I was itching to surf after three days of driving and 1200kms travelled. On the south end of the bay their was a small point and outcropping of rocks, every once in a while a little "A" frame peak broke along the rocks and peeled across the bay. It was a solid chest high, some head high sets, fairly clean with morning sickness. the wind never went offshore but never picked up. I surfed three hours and caught a lot of fun waves. Emari stayed out for 2 hours, paddled to the outside, took a number of waves on the head but never gave up. She later told me she caught one wave, that's my girl! When she gets back to Ventnor the average day in the ocean will seem remedial.

After my session she poured me two hot buckets to rinse off with and when I entered our camper van she had hot soup simmering adding, "I'll throw some grilled cheese together"...another perfect meal, and we ate. I had thought of staying to surf another session but I was already feeling pressed at lunch time when I pulled up the calendar on Emari's cell phone, wondering if we were going to get it all in. We still wanted to go zip-lining and snowboard at least another 10 days. Knowing the amount of driving it would and will take could be exhausting, but we were not here to relax.

Emari dialed up directions for Sandy Bay, 36  kms south but the drive was over an hour. As soon as we got on the road the conditions changed to dirt and gravel, at worse even mud, and we climbed at least four mountain passes, but nothing quite as dangerous as the day before as the roads were not as narrow and generally not so steep. Sandy Bay was bigger than Moureeses but more exposed to the on-shore wind, it was head high with bigger sets, only two people out. I passed, did not want to leave myself with a 600 kms drive during the next two days. 400 kms seems fair, still draining, but allows for a lazy morning or morning of surf and enough day light to travel in.

We continued to head South, this time to Pataua Bar, when on a supposed "classic right hand river bar" but when we arrived the wind was on-shore, tide seemed to full, sky filled with thunder and threatening to storm. I was planning to get wet and had Emari looked up camping options, which locally their was none and I did not feel comfortable camped up in this rather quaint coastal town. At this point we had internet service which has been scarce the entire Northeast coast. Their were two other spots along this stretch of coast I wanted to check out, Waipu Cove and Langs Beach-Ding Bay and Emari found camping just north of Waipu, it was an hours drive and we were "on the road again." We arrived right before dark, one of Emari's wishes, as we have had some near mishaps driving at night. She threw together a version of huevos rancheros after we parked our camper up along the dune line near the beach. Relax, unwind, read...sleep then awake and explore the coast.