A couple of weeks ago I was asked to donate an image for the Auckland Primary Surf Champs. Together with the organisers it was agreed the image should be fun. This got me thinking about Auckland Breaks... the lack there of... and of course the rare mythical set ups that all Auckland surfers mind-surf and dream of. So why not have a bit of fun with that. Here are the UNREAL line-ups from Auckland; City Of Surf.
The poster that started this weird and woolly path of deception and dreams.
Devonpoint. In the post Trumpocalypic Auckland, the world has settled on it's new West/East axis and the old Poles have melted. Both Great and Little Barrier have been mined to the sea floor for their copper and guano as part of the Soviet economic bail out. While the Greenies gnashed their teeth over the decimation of the two islands, Auckland's surfers wrung their hands with glee. The new Barrier Trench created the swell window they had dreamed of for generations. All the inner harbour reefs that had only previously showed in the wake of the Kestral now fire up on every south swell [which is the new east]
Mission Rights; which is actually not one of Auckland’s better waves but most popular. The long walls offer a fun wave that’s easy to catch on any section. Ironically just around the coast past St Heliers is the mythical right hand slab Achilles Point with its easy roll in, to drop out bottom death pit, to being spat out into the deep channel. Achilles Point is almost always double the size of Mission Rights, but not surfed as much. Auckland surfers stating the cafés and soy double flat latte decafes being far superior at Mission Bay.
The man made Te Atatubes. As explained before, the new Barrier Trench created the swell window we had all had dreamed of for generations.
But this did create an issue in the further reaches of the Waitemata Harbour, the swell created by the Barrier Trench pushed silt back into the harbour. The answer was simple, the Auckland City Council wisely [see told you it is factitious] put in giant man made swell generators up the harbour to create water movement which flushed the harbour. Once the natural swell had disapatied the Council engaged the swell generators located at West Harbour and The Old Chelsea Sugar Works [now defunct as sugar has long been regulated as an A class drug] to push the silt out. Logical.
Some of the silt had already created the new massive sand dunes on Te Atatu Peninsular, which was deemed uneconomic to shift and a great tourist attraction. In turn the Herald Island generator pushed refracted swell around the sand dune creating Te Atitubes, Auckland’s premier left hander. Although the hardcore still prefer the ledges at low tide Meola reef.
Fisherman's Reef, Northcote. When the swell generators were put in place at West Harbour and Chelsea Sugar works, it created so much swell in the harbour that many of the old ferry stops had to be ripped out and relocated. Northcote point was one of these. With the pilings of the wharf gone, swell from the Chelsea generator hit the point perfectly. Fullers in cahoots with the Auckland Council dropped in some floodlights and created the world's first public wave park with night surfing. To be fair, the intense barrelling left is probably too heavy for the European backpackers who flock to the point lured by the possibility of getting tubed through the Harbour Bridge. But the local Northcote Point Boardriders love the situation, prowling on the tourists under the thin guise of 'surf instructing'. Northcote Kindergarten was forced to become trilingual in English, German and Russian.
North Reef, Takapuna. Of course Auckland's more consistent breaks like North Reef turned into swell magnets with the new Barrier Trench. Once heavily regulated by local families like the Harveys, Claytons and Robinsons in the 80's and '90s it was the spawning ground for National Champions. But now with waves on tap nearly every day of the year the once treat of a peak is seldom crowded. It often gets overlooked in favour of the Bombie and O'Neill's Point just a block up the coast. Many surfers flag North Reef nowadays citing the razor sharp lava reef as too hard to walk over at mid to low tide.
From The Book Store
Enough of these hoax and dreams, wanna stoke out on some real Kiwi Waves? Well the South Seas Revised Edition is the book for you. Check it out HERE