NZ 46: Surfing and Fishing

Muriwai Beach, New Zealand (Jun 6, 2008)

Not us, of course. We didn’t go surfing or fishing at Muriwai beach. We rather walked along the path with our friends watching the surfers and the people fishing on the shore down the cliffs. Sports are quite an extreme activity in new Zealand, and this holds true for surfing (the waves are quite strong here, and the cliffs menacing), but even for fishing. It is called “extreme rock fishing” and seems to be very popular at Muriwai beach. The activity consists in fly fishing from rocks battered by the surf. This allows to reach deeper waters (and thus more fish) but entails the risks of being swept away by the waves. Apparently this is the fate of a good number of extreme fishers every year, never to be found again (ok, maybe I am exaggerating, but people do drown this way).


We did see some close misses with gigantic waves (the weather was quite stormy as we were there) almost getting some fishers on the flat exposed rocks visible in the photo on the left. When it finally started raining we went back to our friends house (actually to Kendra’s parent house) where we were treated with dinner, and we watched a true kiwi event: a rugby match with the all blacks playing (with the haka and all). They were playing against Ireland, and I think they won (we had to leave before the end of the game). I have actually checked on the all blacks official web site and it seems they played on Jun 7: if this is true then all the dates of this travel diary may be off by one day... oops...