Living in Auckland and Surfing

[nateconable]

Folks,

I am considering moving to Auckland later this year and would appreciate some input on the surfing opportunities. I would be working at URS, which is located near downtown Auckland and presumably living within 5 - 10 miles. Is it possible to surf on a daily basis or is the coast too far away for that kind of thing? What breaks are most accessible from Auckland?

Nate

[scoop]

Nate
contact Murray Weir ... weirdandm@infogen.net.nz He will fill you in
Auckland is the narrowest part of the nth island so should have plenty of opportunities to surf either east or west coast
Cheers
Tony

[albert]

plenty of surf there, shouldnt be a worry.

Murray is pretty far from auckland, he is in Taranaki, but Im sure he knows everything there is to know about surf in Auckland.

where are you moving from?

[wolruss]

Nate,
I lived and worked in Auckland (Papatoetoe) myself for 12 to 18 months and found that although there is water close on either side, they are inland type bays and produced no surf. I found I had to travel about an hour or so either way to find any regular surfing. So it really depends on the hours you are working and the amount of daylight hours left to travel to find the surf. Always good to have eyes on the coast, good to make contact with Murray or anybody else who could be your eyes. Brother-in- law spent a lot of time at Raglan and spoke of it as being a great surf spot although he was there to surf, not to work and grab a surf before or after work.
Also spotted a nice wave at Whakatane, though this was a couple of hours drive away, maybe on weekends. Also heard of Piha being a draw card but only saw it once when it was extremely wild and unsurfable.
Have a look on the web at the position of Auckland on a map and it'll give you an idea how far it is to the coastline, keeping in mind the bays that border the city don't produce waves.
Sorry to be a wet rag but it might pay to look a bit closer and take working hours into consideration.
Having said that, when I win lotto and can spend all my daylight surfing then I could go and discover some of those magical places I've been told about over there.
Of course the Kiwi guys could tell you with a lot more accuracy on the likelyhood of copping a daily surf while working in Auckland, maybe there might be a lead or two of work on the coast - that'd be the trick.

Cheers Wolruss

[wolruss]

Nate,
I lived and worked in Auckland (Papatoetoe) myself for 12 to 18 months and found that although there is water close on either side, they are inland type bays and produced no surf. I found I had to travel about an hour or so either way to find any regular surfing. So it really depends on the hours you are working and the amount of daylight hours left to travel to find the surf. Always good to have eyes on the coast, good to make contact with Murray or anybody else who could be your eyes. Brother-in- law spent a lot of time at Raglan and spoke of it as being a great surf spot although he was there to surf, not to work and grab a surf before or after work.
Also spotted a nice wave at Whakatane, though this was a couple of hours drive away, maybe on weekends. Also heard of Piha being a draw card but only saw it once when it was extremely wild and unsurfable.
Have a look on the web at the position of Auckland on a map and it'll give you an idea how far it is to the coastline, keeping in mind the bays that border the city don't produce waves.
Sorry to be a wet rag but it might pay to look a bit closer and take working hours into consideration.
Having said that, when I win lotto and can spend all my daylight surfing then I could go and discover some of those magical places I've been told about over there.
Of course the Kiwi guys could tell you with a lot more accuracy on the likelyhood of copping a daily surf while working in Auckland, maybe there might be a lead or two of work on the coast - that'd be the trick.

Cheers Wolruss

[splashy]

Piha is probably your closest break....
...I livedi n Hamilton, south of Aukland, and surf Raglan heaps...and when it went on-shore, drove over to the east coast and surfed mt monganui.

There's plenty of waves - you'll probably have to drive for about an hour to get to them. Closest water to Aukland is protected breaks.

The west coast is great for power. Raglan rocks - even when onshore it still has some great push.

Had a guy pull a knife on me in the carpark at Raglan one day - I'd just pulled up and was sitting on the fence looking at the waves and he pulled a knife and told me I wasn't paddling out.... I didn't argue, I grabbed my fly-rod and went trout fishing that morning... surf was ordinary anyway... ha ha

[ross]

i agree with splashy,
Piha is your closest wave.it gets a decent peak in the northern corner on swells 5' and under.crap in a proper swell.generally shithouse.
Wiakato river mouth is worth a look as well.
otherwise your driving.
the south island shiats on the north for waves as long as you can handle the submarines with teeth and surfing on your own.i cannot say anymore

[KAVA]

I and some mates are heading to raglan in feb 07. I have some maori cousins that have unlimited access to indicators. on my last trip to NZ we surfed only raglan everyday for 3 weeks. This time we plan to do a little exlploring. what about surf on the great barrier islands outside the harbor in auckland?

east coast NZ N. Island