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East-Side Update
East-Side Update
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\r\nBy Andy Newell
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\r\nSorry I can’t get you any pics. My video camera has malfunctioned and had to be sent in for repair so I can’t get stills from the video – AKN
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\r\nOh yeah! I just got back to Vermont almost a week ago and have been getting in some good training so far. The late summer and fall is a great time to train in Vermont because it still gets rather hot during the day, but you don’t get the wicked hot nights like in August. Any kind of heat feels good to me right now however, ever since we got back from our New Zealand surf trip.
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\r\nAfter the training camp in New Zealand Chris Cook and I flew with the team to Auckland, on the north Island, but changed our tickets so we could stay and surf for a few days. I had lugged by surfboards all they way to the Snow Farm and back just so Cook and I could get a few waves on our way home. The travel aspect of the trip was a lot easier than I though it was going to be. We rented this little go-cart of a car, jammed the boards in there, and took off driving to the coast. By the time we began driving it was already dark out but the drive went fine. Cook kept the car on the left side of the road, for the most part, and we got to rally on the back roads all the way to the beach.
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\r\nOur destination was a town called Piha and it took us just under an hour to get there from Auckland. As we got closer to our destination we began to realize that Piha wasn’t exactly a hoppin’ town. We had been driving on the road for a while and had seen nothing. No sign of any houses or lights, just a dark jungle of trees on either side of the road. The side roads were turning to dirt and we finally came to a big reflective sign on the side of the road that said. CAUTION EXTREMELY DANGEROUSE SURF AND CURRENTS NO SWIMMING. So I felt fine because I knew we were in the right place.
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\r\nThe road dropped down some cliffs and there before us was the beautiful town of Piha. There were a few houses and a store that didn’t look open, and you could drive through the whole town in well under one minute. We found the place where we were staying, the “Piha Surf Accommodations” which was located off the main road next to the Piha surf shop. The people who owned the place were really nice. They were probably close to 50 years old and ran the surf accommodations and the surf shop. The husband Mike Jolly made surfboards and surfed his long board every morning all year round. They explained to us how they usually don’t let people in after dark because, “there are a lot or crazy people around,” but since I had been in contact with them they showed us to our Caravan.
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\r\nYeah, that’s right! I said Caravan, baby! This place has a bunch of little caravans tucked away in the thick bush on these little roads. Each place had a generator and its own outhouse. There was a community shower that consisted of a bucket (to stand in), a hose with a showerhead, hooked up to this little propane tank, and all these wires hooked up to a car battery. I tried to take a shower once but couldn’t figure it out so the both of us just didn’t shower for 3 days. Our caravan was pretty sweet. It had a living room/Cook’s room/ TV room. (There was a little wooden addition to the caravan about 10f by 3/12 feet just big enough for Cook to sleep in). This room was attached to the master bedroom/ kitchen. (This was a small trailer that Cook’s room was attached to. It was so small it was hard to have two people stand in there at the same time). With all the excitement of getting to Piha Cook and I hadn’t really paid much attention to the weather. As we settled into our Caravan I realized I was a little chilly. I then realized I was still wearing my down jacket, the same thing I had been wearing when we left the snowy mountains of the South Island.
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\r\nThe surf ended up being really nice for the next two days and it was fun, even though it might have been one of the coldest 2 days of my life. It was warm in the sun, but the air temp was still pretty cold. The Tasmen Sea was actually warmer than I though it was going to be and I could stay in for about 1 ½ to 2 hours before getting the shakes really bad. I would have been a little better off with a thicker wet suit. If you had a 4/3 and booties it was fine though. I would surf until I couldn’t feel my legs when I was standing on by board, an then paddle in, turn the heat on full blast in the car and put on my down jacket.
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\r\nWe got some good waves. It was head high our first day, and then a little smaller and cleaner the next 2 days. I was impressed with Cook, having not surfed much at all, paddling out into 6 foot semi-crowded surf. We just lived the surfer bum lifestyle living on PB and J sandwiches and surfing all day. Whenever we would drive up next to our caravan we would say in a mumbling English accent. “ Hey, Why the f%ck I’d want a caravan that ain’t got no wheels” (you’d have to see the movie Snatch to think that’s funny).
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\r\nSorry about the pics.
\r\nSki on!
\r\nNewell
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Chris Cook, cross-training.
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Written By: anewellDate Posted: 9/9/2004Number of Views: 295
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