Body boards, Woolleys Bay and Monsoons

Wow, what a day we've had. Crowded House (the very famous NZ band) wrote a song called four seasons in one day about the very changeable NZ weather. Yesterday we woke up to fairly calm, sunny conditions. We had decided to have a nice chilled out morning and sleep off the effects of coming 2nd in the pub quiz and drinking the whole houses content of alcohol from the previous night (causing Catherine to sleep in the garden, where she fell!). We then planned to head to Tutukaka for a spot of lunch then go to Matapouri for a spot of body boarding. We loaded up Biff with our new wet suits and Danny and Catherine. We had borrowed a few body boards from friends and i was really excited about going in the sea again.

We had lunch and noticed that it quite quickly begun to cloud over and spit with rain. No problem, i thought as we were going to get wet anyway. We then drove to stunning Matapouri Beach to go look for the Mermaid pools, which are these secluded deep rock pools which are good for snorkeling in. The walk to them though was treacherous. We had to climb under a huge rock, then shimmy along a thin ledge above a ten foot drop into what was now, quite rough seas. The weather was deteriorating fast and the girls decided to not risk the ledge shimmy and possible death from falling into the wild sea and headed back to the relative calm of the beach. Danny and me pushed on though and did our best impression of rockhopper penguins. We made it to the mermaid pools which I'm sure would've been spectacular if not for the sea thrashing against the rocks and the wind now howling. We tentatively made our way back to the beach to hook up with the girls again.

We watched the waves for a bit then decided to head further up the coast to a better spot called Woolleys Bay. Yep, i travel half way round the world and still can't escape the bloody Woolleys!!
Woolleys Bay was a lot smaller than Matapouri but the waves seemed a lot bigger and there were plenty of them. By the time we got into our wetsuits it was hammering it down. Luckily the water wasn't too cold.

Now i always thought body boarding looked easy. You waited for a wave, lay on your board then glide back to shore as the wave breaks. Well, i wasn't anything like that. First we had to get to the point where the waves were breaking which was only about 50 metres offshore. That was difficult as every time you tried to move you were buffeted by a 4 foot high wall of water. Kate and Catherine stayed closer to shore and managed to ride a few little waves but Danny and i were out for the biggens. I waded out, jumping over waves and getting a nose full of salt water for my efforts. I decided to try and duck under the waves with my board as i have seen surfers do on TV. Not being the most graceful of people my first attempt at diving under a wave was nearly the end of me! A big 6 foot sucker headed straight for me, i held my breath and dived just as the wave broke in front of me. I completely under estimated the strength of the wave which slammed my body board into my face and tumbled me backwards! After a few backward rolls and a second to clear my head i tried to right my self in the surf. Just as i got back to a standing position and broke the surface to take a breath another big sucker slammed into me, pushing me back under. I thought about panicking but was re assured when my feet found the soft sand of the ocean floor. This allowed me to thrust upward and break the surface for a precious gasp of air. Phew, slow painful drowning avoided.

I then composed myself and managed to ride a few waves before getting very tired and heading back to shore. Maybe it was because i narrowly averted death or because i had ridden a few waves but my confidence was high. So high that i tried to do a sort of acid drop on my board in the shallows. A acid drop, for those of you not familiar with skateboarding, is when you run then jump into the air, putting your board under you with your hand then land on it and ride away. I managed to execute it very well but my trailing leg slipped off and dug into the sand whilst my leading leg slid away on the board. This meant performing a sort of funny split type thing, twisting my knee and scrapping it on the shingle below. I hobbled away to the laughs of Kate on the beach who had seen it all and deemed it hilarious.

Having Biff at the beach was a god send because as we all finished the weather was now a huge storm and it allowed us to get changed in relative comfort, warmth and privacy. As we drove home the weather just got worse and worse and by the time we did get home we were in the middle of a full blown monsoon! It was raining hard and the wind was bending trees and blowing the rain sideways! We decided we would leave cleaning Biff til the next day and stay in for a delivered curry.

Tomorrow we are supposed to go on a tree top assault course but i imagine if the weather stays like this we won't be able to. In that case we're heading off to the cinema to watch Slumdog Millionaire which i hear is totally boss!

Take care y'all and beware the offer of body boarding. It's a lot harder than it looks. Especially in a monsoon.

Peace

D

xxxx