5 Americans, 2 Boards, 1 Sponge, Anxiety and Stoke, all into one 2003 Nissan Sunny sedan.
That was the master plan that five University students came up with to get away from the city on a beautiful sunny weekend. Originally, our plan was to rent-a-car two hours south down to the famous Left of Raglan. Last minute, Taylor noticed that the surf reports hailed for Piha, the closer beach to Auckland City, from 3-5 ft. with a light offshore breeze. We flipped in the blink of an eye.
After successfully booking a rental car, some of us spent the Friday night in, preparing for the day ahead. The more intrepid (Charlie and Steph), however, attended the University's Foam Party for a well-soaked, night of raging.
6 AM next morning I was woken up by an already stoked, lunch-prepared, wetsuit packed, non-existant hangover Charlie, all ready to go on another adventure. We all met up and walked the 15 minutes to the rental station, got the car and set in. After the first five minutes, my stereotype took over, and it was obvious that my driving skills were not up to par for the trip. Nearly avoiding running into a (parked) car, I let Taylor take over, and we were on our way to Piha.
Regularly a 40-minute drive from Central Auckland, it took us almost two hours to reach Piha, getting quite lost along the way. Already having to do the opposite of everything we were taught, while driving in the States, we had to also deal with the complexity of the signal lights, which is in the picture above. Thank God that Taylor seemed like he came out of the womb prepared to drive on the left side of the road.
Piha is a small seaside town surrounded by rugged cliffs on each side, but isolated to a beach as beautiful as the clear waters of Hawaii. The black sand beach was super different from the beaches we were used to at home. Apprehensive of where to park, we pulled up to the lot of a "lawn bowling club" and convinced ourselves that no tow-truck in their right mind would climb down the cliff to take our rental away.
Suiting up, we ran for the water, whilst the girls led off to hike up Lion Rock as well as the ginormous cliffs that surrounded the beach. The surf was epic. We decided to try out South Piha, as North was filled with easily 30 surfers. A little walled, Charlie, (always) the first to charge a shoulder, led the mount to dropping in. There were probably three other guys out there. Taylor went for a left and I thought he was for sure going over the falls because his take off was so late. How wrong was I. Lazy-boying it into the pop-up, Taylor "Tyga" Gregory sat in the barrel for a good 2 seconds before pumping into a snap. Wish I had the Go Pro there. The offshore breeze starting to pick up a little on the stronger side, and we went in for lunch after a probable 3 hour session.
Too stoked to surf, we had forgotten to plan a meet-up time with the girls. Making quick solutions, Charlie stayed at the car with our stuff while we set out to find Lindsay and Steph. He also caught up on a little sleep that he'd missed the night before (Photo).
After eating, we checked out Piha North, which definitely had more consistent swell but was packed with experienced surfers. We decided to do one more session back at South. Learning from previous mistakes, we set a meet up time with the girls, and paddled out for our afternoon/last session of the day. It looked shitty from the shore, but once we got out there, left shoulders seemed to peel for days, and Charlie took advantage. Two other spongers came out, but looked straight noob-ish compared to Charlie's charging turns, spraying water on those groms like he was cleaning up shower walls after a post-bath cleanse. Pretty sure four El Rollo's later, our arms were like spaghetti strings, and we bailed for the day.
After ensuring Taylor downed his coffee, we set out for home, doing a little better than before, but still, getting lost. America.
