The idea to do a road trip through New Zealand came up when Dan-the-man who helps run the Saltmotion gallery asked if he could have a week off to go on a surf trip. I asked him where he was thinking of heading and he seemed pretty keen to go to NZ. He’d lived there for a few years and was keen to catch up with some waves from his past.

Never wanting to feel left out, I organised my calendar and decided to go along as well. Initially we figured we would get six people to make up the group, however, when it came time to lay down the cash, a couple of the boys were short and had to pull out. It worked out that four people in a motor home was the perfect (almost) fit – two fellas had to share a bed each night but we don’t really need to discuss that here.

In the weeks leading up to the trip we tried to organise things like a route to take, places to visit, which boards and wetsuits would be necessary. But, in true road trip fashion, we left everything to the last minute, screwed up the booking dates, had to pull some massive favours to get the flights changed, tossed everything into a boardbag and headed to the airport.

The adventure had well and truly begun before we were even half way into the flight. An airhostesses took a liking to one of the guys in our group. A conversation was struck up, drinks – and I mean DRINKS – started making their way from the first class cabin back to our economy class seats, along with invitations to the first class lounge on the upper deck of the new Airbus A380. The amount of Chivas Regal and Dom Perignon provided to three of our group of four (I don’t drink) was enough to ensure that when we arrived in Auckland, the customs official took one look at us and asked if we were in a rock and roll band. Sure, one of the group was carrying a guitar, but I think it was the general look of drunkenness that caught his eye.

We picked up the campervan that we were to call home for the next week and headed into Auckland to stock up on supplies. Given the excessive amount of alcohol most had just consumed, I was first up to drive. Navigating a 7.5m house on four wheels through peak hour traffic into a foreign city was an interesting experience, made even more interesting given the lack of sobriety from the boys in the back.

We stocked up at the supermarket for the week; we even bought a bottle of shower gel (which remained unopened until we dropped the motor home back at the airport a week later). With everything ready to roll we only had one more decision to make: whether we wait for the airhostesses for a night out with them, or to hit the highway and drive into the night in the hope of finding some waves in the morning.

The hostesses lost and the waves won. It was probably one of the better decisions we made through the trip. We headed out of Auckland and south towards Raglan. This area is one of the most famous point break set-ups in the country and, by no means a secret, it could almost be called the home of New Zealand surfing. There are several different points to surf and a few world-class beach breaks as well. We arrived well into the night, parked up and I crashed out. The other three had managed to consume a bottle or rum on the highway and decided it would be a good idea to ‘live in the moment’ and crack into the two bottles of Dom Perignon that were gifted to us courtesy of our ‘friendly’ air-hostess.

I awoke at dawn, looked out the window of the motor home to the view that any surfer dreams of. A perfect day. I grabbed a camera and went to work. The car park started to fill, as the sun rose the locals started to arrive and were obviously pretty excited to have such great conditions. I overheard a few conversations that went along the lines of ‘best day in ages’, ‘slightly smaller than yesterday, but much cleaner’, you get the idea – it was “on like Dom Perignon” – Unfortunately the boys were a little worse for wear and although I tried to wake them, they were in no state to surf just yet.

I kept photographing, knowing that the trip may not see waves like this again, I knew I had to make the most of it. Eventually the crew woke and dusted themselves off. Once they saw a few hollow ones roll down the point they sobered up pretty fast and we all hit the water. We had an amazing first morning’s surf, even though the fellas were a little wobbly in the legs, it was a great start to the trip. Once we were all surfed out, and that really did not take too long for some, Josh could be heard saying: “That’s it, no more drinking. Health starts today” – yeah yeah…

We had a few small things that needed to be sorted out in town, like phones and internet access so I could post the daily Salmotion photos throughout the trip. When the wind came up around midday, it made the decision pretty easy to move on. We headed off and, after checking a few swell and weather reports, decided to drive north, right up to the top of the west coast. On the way out of Raglan we saw a group of girls, hitchhiking, holding up a sign saying “waterfall”. Of course being the good natured, kind hearted gentlemen we are, we stopped to pick them up. It turned out to be a good decision. We stopped off for an hour at the most amazing waterfall and I managed to get some of my favorite photographs of the trip.

That night we got well and truly lost, wound our way down a few dirt tracks to a gate that, according to the map, was where we wanted to be but, according to Dan, was no where close.  We back tracked into the hills for a while then decided to call the mission off and wait until dawn, which was only a few hours away. The beauty of a motor home is that any place will do for the night – got to love that!

At first light we realised we had actually been in the right spot the night before, so headed back to look for waves. There was a small swell and we did get a couple of rides in, but really the swell was on the decline, the tide was up and we were not going to score much in the way of waves that day. We decided to hang out at the beach, bask in the sunshine, go for a swim, listen to Josh and James belt out a few tunes on the guitar and generally chill out for a while…

It was about this time in the trip that I started to think that all the Kiwis I had met in Sydney were conspiring against us. New Zealand is beautiful, really beautiful. When you drive from place to place, coast to coast, the scenery is amazing. I won’t go into the clichés to describe it, but if you take spectacular, breathtaking, awesome, inspiring, put them all in a sentence and throw in the odd noun, you’re still nowhere close. Add to that the fact that everyone kept telling me the South Island was even better and my theory about the Kiwi conspiracy starts to make more sense.
You see I live in Sydney where, statistically, there are more New Zealanders than in New Zealand. I’m not sure how that works either, but trust me it’s true. My neighbors in the next apartment are from N.Z. My mate across the street is a Kiwi and you only need to go to a pub when the All Blacks are playing to know that there is an abundance of New Zealander’s in Sydney. So why, if New Zealand is as amazing and beautiful as I have tired to describe, are so many of them coming to Australia? From talking to most of them it is about work & the opportunities. But that still does not explain why you don’t hear New Zealanders raving about how good their home country is. Personally I think they are trying to keep it quiet. I think they are more than happy to have the majority of Australians head to Bali each year rather than crowding the line-ups they love and grew up surfing.

Something else was also going on in New Zealand when we arrived. I am not a big rugby fan, so I had no idea that we had booked our trip to coincide with the Rugby World Cup finals. New Zealand had not won the cup for 24 years, every four years they had entered the tournament with the number one ranked team. Every four years they had reached the crunch matches and, well, choked.

Driving through the country you could sense something was going to be different this year. The Rugby World Cup was being hosted in NZ and you did not need any sixth sense or intuition to know that the whole country was behind their All Blacks. Every house, school, business, Church or random building had an All Blacks flag flying. The countryside was littered with huge “Go All Blacks” banners and if the population had to take to the rugby field and tackle every opponent themselves, they were not letting that trophy leave.

The night before the big game we arrived in Gisborne, a town with some rich surfing options. We headed straight for the beach and pulled up to see a few happy, smiling cops arresting a few young fellas for selling weed. The cops seemed pretty relaxed about the whole thing, as did the guys being arrested. It seems even getting in trouble with the cops in NZ can be a good laugh. Anyway, the surf was totally blown out, the forecast was for more onshore rubbish and we were left with no real options if we wanted to surf. Knowing we had a bit of time up our sleeves before conditions improved, we took a little detour to visit a friend of mine who lived in the Hawkes Bay area; an area not known for it’s waves, but kind of on the way to somewhere else that was…

Throwing on some true Kiwi hospitality, we arrived to a home cooked meal and a long hot shower (the first of the trip so far). The thing is, when we picked up the motor home they showed us a DVD of how everything worked, including the toilet and shower, and what was involved to ‘empty it’. Unanimously we agreed that the shower / toilet was off limits. The ‘washroom’ then served as a good storage spot for wet wetsuits instead.

Sitting around at Lea’s place, a mate of hers, Shayne, dropped by and we started talking about surfing. Shayne offered to pick us up in the morning and take us to a four wheel drive access only beach where there would be a wave. Stoked on the idea, we agreed to meet him in the morning and he came through with the goods. We drove along a beautifully deserted beach and ran into only two other cars with a handful of surfers. As the boys jumped in and started picking off a few waves I asked Shayne where to stash the keys when I went out for a wave after I was done photographing. “In the ignition bro – no one around here going to steal your stuff. Don’t stress – come surf”. Life in New Zealand is still good, honest and wholesome – that made me smile.

Back to the rugby, tonight was the final. We were invited to a friend of Lea’s to watch the game and enjoy some home cooked pizzas thanks to their own outdoor pizza oven. We got there around 3pm and the Kiwis were already getting into the spirit, or perhaps they were trying to deaden their nerves. The weight of expectation on their team was enormous and everyone was hoping for a walk over, yet knowing that the All Blacks could, well, choke! The afternoon and evening was spent listening to Josh and James strum endless tunes on the guitar. We were so lucky to have these two ultra talented musicians on a surf trip with us. When we were driving the scenic roads of the North Island, they provided the soundtrack. When we stopped to chill for a while, they provided the entertainment and when we found ourselves amongst a group of strangers, edgy about the result of a rugby game, they provided the party atmosphere.

By the time the game kicked off at 9pm everyone was a little too well lubricated. It turns out the game was amazingly tight with only one point deciding the victors and it really could have swung either way at any stage. When the New Zealand captain hoisted the trophy above his head there was as much a sense of relief as victory or celebration among the population. With a bad run of natural disasters and a long time between the popping of champagne corks for their national team, I was glad they won. It certainly put the whole country in a great mood for the remainder of our trip.

Leaving Hawkes Bay was bitter-sweet. We had enjoyed such an amazing time there, scored waves with the locals and watched as a country restored its national sporting pride. I also had to say good-bye to a friend who I would rather see more frequently. But we had waves to find and more of the country to see. The boys were hung-over again and as we drove out of Lea’s driveway I heard Josh from the back of the campervan “Health starts today boys…”

Our next destination was Taranaki, a mecca for surfers with its exposed breaks but notoriously fickle with winds. We knew not to expect much as we had checked the forecast, but we figured we would head there and hope for the best.

Looking at a map there was no direct route across the country so we picked a town along the way and headed to Taupo.

I’m not sure why, but the Kiwis have a habit of thrill seeking any way they can. If there is something natural to jump off, fly from, roll down, tumble with, raft over, or free fall out of, they have it covered. If there are no natural structures, no problem, you can jump off the highest building in Auckland, of course you can! When I asked Shayne about this, he just looked at me and said: “just looking for something to do bro”. At the time, we were standing at the top of a mountain in Hawkes Bay, with a road to the top that I was scared to drive up. On arriving at the top we saw two hang gliding launch ramps and a dozen or so mountain bike tracks that I would honestly not even walk down let alone ride a pushie down – these people are crazy, and I love that!

So we arrived in Taupo around lunchtime. I had missed the last fuel station leaving Hawkes Bay thinking we had enough to get us to our destination. While the guys chilled in the back I quietly sweated as the needle on the fuel gauge headed south and stayed there with the light on for a very long time. When we eventually reached the town I pumped 79.74 litres of diesel into an 80-liter tank. Easy, more than enough to spare!

It was a perfect blue-sky day and the guys had a hangover from watching the rugby the night before. What better way to clear the sore head than by jumping out of an airplane. With no chance of a wave that day it was agreed that’s what we would do, enough said, just do it, and it was done…

Still on our mission to get to Taranaki, we took the most direct route we could see on the map, “The Forgotten World Highway”. Holy hell they named it well. Take a pen and a piece of paper, blindfold yourself and try and draw concentric circles on a page in three different directions. The resulting squiggle will give you somewhat of an idea as to what this road is like. We twisted and wound ourselves around for hours through the valleys and mountains, awestruck by the beauty and terrified by the bends, until we finally came out the other side to ‘Changs Taranaki Chinese Buffet’, we were in Taranaki! Digging into some crispy skinned fried chicken and washing it down with a soft drink I heard Josh mutter: “Health starts tomorrow boys”

The gamble to head to Taranaki did not pay off. The winds were howling and the swell kind of small, add to that the clouds had rolled in and the views of the volcano that we had hoped to see were totally whited out. We flicked through a few maps, logged onto the local swell forecasting charts and made a plan to head back to Raglan for our last day’s surfing.

A few hours later we were soaking up a few slightly onshore but very ridable point break lefts. We surfed until the tide totally bottomed out and then headed into town for one last mission on the trip. James had been talking about a Maori style tattoo for some time and rumor had it that there was a local guy that would be able to help. We asked around and found his details from the guy in the video store.

James and Simon discussed ideas and symbolism before Simon said a prayer of Maori origin and got to work with needle and ink. It turns out the size of the piece was going to require a long time to complete. While James sat through until 1am, the rest of us made camp in the motor home, listened to Josh strum a few tunes and had an early night.

James on the other hand was going hard with Simon to get the body art complete. They began again at 7:00am for another three hours, leaving us just enough time to get the motor home back to the rental company and us to the airport.

By this stage in the trip we had managed to score one shower at Lea’s place and that was it. When we arrived at the motor home rental depot to pack all our gear and get ready for the flight home, we could have kissed the attendant when he told us there was a shower in the office area we were welcome to use. Fresh and clean, we were hoping to see our favourite airhostess on the flight home. Alas it was not to be, which was probably a good thing as everyone was pretty tired and all we wanted was to relax a while and watch a film.

So the trip came to an end, “health started tomorrow…” and I started thinking about the next adventure. I’m sure that “Road Trip Two – The South Island” will be the title of an article I write sometime in the not too distant future.

New Zealand was not a place I would have picked in my top ten places to go on a surf trip, but it has certainly muscled its way into the top ten list of places I want to visit again. If you are interested in mind blowing landscapes and good waves then I say go, get a group of mates together and book a motor home, it’s an amazing way to see the country. I promise you will not be disappointed – and I only saw the North Island…

The day after I arrived back in Manly I ran into my Kiwi Neighbours, they all asked how the trip was and the smile on my face was a dead giveaway, “it’s pretty good there ay…” was all they needed to say to get my agreement. And if the surf goes flat you can always throw yourself off the side of a cliff in some creative way!

Enjoy your day,
Joel Coleman…

The Perfect Wave Surf Experience Specialists can get you there; organsie the best rates on the Motor Home and even organise you a surf guide. We spent a week, but could easily have spent a month… Don’t just think about it – GO.