Remove the Hype: Actually Find the Break

Post quake rumours of "new surf breaks" were abundant just after the Kaikoura earthquake(s).
Little did myself and Russell Bruce know that a failed mission to a hard to access surf location just north of Kaikoura would turn into a discovery of something very new and exciting on the way home.
Curiosity is a cat killer and Russ and I had both gone through the bi-polar frothing emotions the day before our trip on whether or not it was actually worth the drive down and in hindsight for our actual intended mission it wasnt.

(above): Original mission failed, the boys head home deflated.

This was just the first rise and fall in our roller coaster of emotion filled day with a block of land for sale and a quick tip-off from a former local from the area we stumbled across a gem just as we were about to leave the eastern shore for our journey home. A decent drive up a pea-metal/shingle river bed and track led us to an amazing sight,  A lone peak breaking in the middle of nowhere with consistency only a solid piece of reef could offer it wasnt long before we were in our wetsuits and paddling out. The massive oversight was that the whole journey up the beach the rather expensive four wheel drive we were travelling in was on the verge of bogging the whole way and during the elation of surfing a new break I couldnt help but keep looking back at the precarious vehicle on the shoreline and thinking to myself "we are....f....d"..

We surfed the wave until we could surf no more, exchanging sets and priority but when the surf was over and it was time to head off our poor new school land rover had other ideas.

First we went back 6 metres and sunk. Then we went forward 6 metres and sunk. Then we revved the motor out of pure desperation and we dropped faster than a russian submarine retrieving Harold Holt. Buried a metre into the shingle with an incoming tide, dead cellphones  and half an hour before sunset we knew we had to make a decision fast.

This involved a 5km run to a nearby farmstead where the farmer named Bruce greeted us on his 4wheeler and angry sheep dogs. He told us he would go get his tractor and humourisly made us run back to the car the way we came rather than give us a cruisy tractor ride. Russ and I did a really great impersonation of Ethiopian marathon runners as we hurdled gorse and thistle and broken down electric fences. We were towed out on sundown showering the farmer with cash and white wine he was stoked and we were stoked and we arrived safely home at 1130 that evening right in time for an earthquake out in cook strait as a gentle reminder of how mortal we all are.

The moral of the story and the rumours are still abundant. There are some interesting new happening over on that coast and the places you least expect may actually be the biggest surprises yet.

It was dead flat in Kaikoura this day and we most likely lucked the whole scene but just remember..

The Search is never over......

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