Warning: Surf Content

Hi,

Hope you all are doing well. I wish I knew- I miss you all.

But I will say our troubles are all relative. Have you been hearing the news about food shortages in Haiti, and about immanent food shortages in many other countries? I don’t know where it’s all headed (god, November/January can’t come soon enough), but I’m glad we at least have one another, to be kind to and care for.

I’ve been fine. I’ve been lax about keeping up with this blog because I’ve been sick, and haven’t had the moxie, verve or pep. But I’m better now, and hope to be a bit more on top of things, including Pretty Vacation.

(By the way, thanks Janet and Jon for your sinus voiding tips, which I tried and it helped. If ever you should meet at a cocktail party, you now know you have at least one thing in common).

At this moment, I’m sitting in a dimly lit lounge of a hostel in Christchurch, listening to The Scissor Sisters at low volume on headphones, in an effort to tune out the movements of my fellow lodgers I’m feeling anti-social, and would be in my room writing, but the socket doesn’t work. So- hi everyone! Today I am a geek.

I made my way from Opoutere back to Raglan, driving from the east coast to the west, which took about two hours, and spent the night. I’m sad to say that I went surfing in the late afternoon at Indicator, and got verbally harassed by local surfers, defending their territory, essentially. This has happened to me there in the past. The effect is very dispiriting.

I’ve had plenty of fun at Raglan, but with countless other places to try, why bother?
I decided to make it a priority to seek out more obscure, uncrowded surf spots.

The next morning I made the beautiful drive down to the Taranaki region, about three hours south of Raglan, also on the west coast. The first third of the drive is through gently rolling green hills, farmland, and the occasional small town. Then the landscape becomes rugged, twisting through rocky gorges and the wonderful, unique N.Z. mix of pine trees and tree-size ferns that cling to the steep, volcanic hills, descending to twisting rivers and creeks. The final third of the trip is along the coast, and reminds me a lot of the drive from San Francisco to Santa Cruz, but longer, more rugged and less developed (and the houses that
are there are either on farms or just more funky and humble).

I didn’t take too many photos during the drive. For road one thing- I was driving! But mostly, I just wasn’t feeling very good. Recently, with you and this blog in mind, I’ve made a bit more of an effort to pull over and try to capture the beautiful vistas one sees routinely while whizzing along. But I’ve found that most of the time, the “scenic roadside” pictures don’t quite communicate. In the next installment, I’ll include a few, so you can judge for yourself.

One funny thing I’ve been experiencing throughout this trip has been tricks of memory and déjà vu. Because I was last in New Zealand only two and a half years ago, I still remember details and half-remembered things about- oh, just about everything. City layouts, hostel layouts, particular cups and saucers (the octagonal plates at Opoutere!). I remembered to turn off Cameron to Lemon Street, and found the hostel I liked in New Plymouth without looking at a map.

After the experience in Raglan the night before, I was keen to catch a wave by myself. The afternoon was beautiful and clear, with strong offshore winds that scrubbed the sky blue and are perfect for surfing. After a short search (within city limits, no less!), I found what I was looking for:

The next morning the sky was brilliant blue, with the offshore wind still blowing strong.
I followed a little one-lane farm road to its end, and then clambered over fences, crossing cow pastures to discover this place:

Turning 180 degrees from the surf, we see this:

This part of the country takes its name from Mt Taranaki, which dominates the landscape. Usually the top of the mountain is hidden by cloud. This morning, this whole week in fact, it was entirely clear- and a thrill to behold while surfing.

Although I didn’t capture them here, squares of cultivated land run up the gentle curve of mountain’s lower region. The effect is of looking up to look down on their patterns.

The countless perfect surfing reefs that ring the shore of Taranaki are the product of lava flow from the volcano. Here at this spot, two surfers were making their way out over the rocks. I took a close-up to illustrate the process one has to go through to get in (and out). Remember my Indicator story?

Looking north, I saw spray from perfect waves spinning along other reefs. I decided to leave these two to themselves, and find another spot.

For the next two days I surfed this place. You parked at the terminus of another farm road, and then walked for half an hour (some surfers drove little farm vehicles) along a driftwood-covered beach to a headland where a beautiful left-breaking wave peeled along for ages.

The beach was a long, long crescent. A broken wave would reach the shore, then it’s whitewash would sweep away from where I sat watching, rushing along the curve of the bay at twenty or thirty miles and hour, for several kilometers. I wish I could’ve filmed it, or could describe it better. It had a motion of symmetry that I’d never seen before- it was hypnotic, like a bird flying in one spot, or a yo-yo- Oh I can’t describe it.


But it was profoundly relaxing.

I’ll be in Dunedin tomorrow, where I’ve rented a room in a house for a month. I want to put this up, raw and a bit boring, just to offer something new, but I’ll have more time soon to communicate a bit more thoughtfully. Oh Blog! As hideous as your moniker! “Word” does not even recognize you, and scratches an angry red welt under your homely name…