A lot of fun – we decided to try surfing in the ocean. Recommended by our hosts, the Muriwai Beach
was awesome, waves were huge (at least to us, but the life savers told us they are bigger than usually as well) and the sand really hot – I burned my feets several times when crossing to or from the beach to the parking place.
Preparation was quite long, we had to put all the stickers on our kayaks, find the rest of our equipment (our car could look small on photos, but it is incredibly spacious inside, especially when you are looking for something) and mentally prepare ourselves. But after that it was quick – jump into the water and paddle as far as we felt brave enough.
First surf and what an incredible sensation, it is fantastic, much different to surfing on the river – it lasts longer, the ocean looks really dangerous at first but after that you realize that it doesn’t want to harm you, the wave just catchs you and hold, doesn’t want to turn you upside down, which was really strange to me, because it is different to the water in river, which is (at least to me) more aggressive.
We spent there the whole day, got sunburn on our feets, wrote our website in the sand, and in the afternoon moved to gannet’s colony near by. The birds are beautiful, nesting just on the edge of rock, where a strong wind blow the whole time. The wind is especially important to them, because it helps them to fly upwards. Their hunting is interesting as well, they fly over ocean and when they see a fish (several meters deep, doesn’t matter), they just go down in about 140km/h and catch the fish there.
Our first day out of the down, just enjoying ourselves and having a good time – what a beautiful day.