TR: Easter in the South Pacific Video Added
I know I have been a bit quiet on the TR front of late but life sometimes gets in the way with work and other shit and I can’t get out of the local as much as I would like. The fact I knew I had this little getaway planned made it easier to deal with the humdrum stuff of everyday life like sitting in traffic and dealing with work etc with no weekends away in between.
My last day at work was the Thursday before Easter, had a bit to do in the morning and was sitting on my laptop in the terminal building until last boarding call for our flight at 3pm. It was with a bit of relief and a fatalistic “well not much I can do about it now” that I closed the lappie and headed down the catwalk and onto the plane.
The flight as most usually are, was mostly uneventful, I just read a book and tried to ignore the large Tongan man behind us who was downing straight duty free Jim Beam at a rate that was alarming the stewards. With each drink he became progressively louder until such time as he ran out and then began to snore, this seemed to annoy Mish far more than me, next flight she’ll be rocking noise cancelling earphones I suspect.
We arrived at our destination after a 4.5 hours and made our way slowly through the customs and immigration requirements but happily were met by our transfer driver right outside. It was another supposed 45min drive to our final destination but this morphed into more like 90mins after bungling around trying to find ATM’s that would work and a shop that was open and sold alcohol. As the next day was Good Friday and everyone is very religious by law nothing is allowed to be open so buying enough alcohol to last a couple of days was important, the 1.5Litre bottle of Jim Beam I had might not cover it so I bought a case of Steinlager as well.
Midnight came and went before we stumbled into our lodgings, I was impressed, I had no real idea what they would be like but had gone for the top of pile when it came to Fale rates.
A kinda panorama of our deck view
In the morning I woke up about 8am local time and saw the surf was actually pretty good so I stuck fins in my board, pulled on some boardies and paddled out. The only two people out were an old Aussie guy and the nephew of the resort owner, a young kid about 13. There were some fun little rights up to about 3ft and offshore. I soon became accustomed to the fact the very long period swell results in significant time between sets so balls out wave after wave sessions weren’t really going to be a feature of the trip.
The Right out the front.
Another View of the Right and the Left straight out the front
After that surf I ended up being really glad I forked out for some snorkelling gear before heading over there, was a big part of our trip, here’s some shots of the underwater life.
The following day I went out for a surf on the boat to the outer reefs with a few of the other guests and ended up surfing Razors, was small and not quite clean but was fun apart from when the wind turned and we got hammered by a change that brought pissing rain and howling winds for the rest of the day. The boat trip back was somewhat interesting.
The next day was still a little overcast but a vast improvement, we did some more snorkelling and took the sea kayaks out for paddle where we found this little cave in the low cliffs north of the resort.
The next day the sun was out but the winds were still unfavourable, I had a surf anyways and some more snorkelling and lazing about.
The following day was kinda like a NE wind at home, I had a couple of shorter surfs in the blistering sun and lazed around reading and drinking beers. It wasn’t till the last 3 days that things perked up again surfwise, we took the girls out in the boat to the outer reefs, was tiny but the girls went snorkelling while me and the other guest went for a grovel.
Me and one of the other guests had another grovel at a small wave called corners up past the low cliffs in the reef passage, the water is so crystal clear that seeing the reef so clearly kinda makes you freak a little when you’re surfing.
The next bit is just a heap of pics of the surf, I got a little obsessed and one of the other guests was nice enough to take some water footage and Mish took some land pics as well, I hope you get the picture.
The left out the front shot from our deck.
The right on the other side of the reef pass
Me on the left out the front on the next few
Some mental empty wave shots to mindsurf to your hearts content.
And some obligatory tropical sunset pics
Got some pics at a resort bar down the beach we visited with some others from our resort.
There are so many other pics but I think these capture the trip pretty well, had some great waves, great food, great place to stay and met a lot of cool people, mostly all from NZ so now if we ever visit the north island we have plenty of places to stay ha ha!
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[link]https://vimeo.com/63394629[/link]
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Wheres the buttons for adding vimeo gone?
Woo something to read on this very slow and murky day! Looking forward to the next few updates!
Welcome back!!
Some isn’t illegal to drink Duty Free on the flight? Or where the hosties to scared of the big guy to try and stop him?
Welcome back!!
Some isn’t illegal to drink Duty Free on the flight? Or where the hosties to scared of the big guy to try and stop him?
No idea, I wouldn’t even know, hey was pretty toasted by about 3 hours in though.
Damn you have a good life!!
Looks so beautiful!! Glad you guys got the snorkeling gear.. Looked like you both enjoyed it! 
that wave looks sooooooo much fun!
Damn you have a good life!!
Mud maybe we’ve got it wrong, the people there don’t have much but I’m really starting to think they are onto something, maybe that’s the way life is meant to be lived, they all seem quite happy and so goddamn relaxed it ridiculous. Low income, zero stress and they all seem to help each other out when they need it. If I had a house to sell I might just do it and go sit on a beach surfing when I wanted, tending to my farm plot and fishing for dinner.
looks pretty fun the whole lot! Seems to be a mix of lefts and rights which is good. What was the resort called that you stayed at?
farrrkk dude that looks amazing, seems like u had a ball..
Welcome back.
Welcome back!!
Some isn’t illegal to drink Duty Free on the flight? Or where the hosties to scared of the big guy to try and stop him?
Yes It is, my mates almost got charged when we went to Bali, they were stupid enough to carry the bottles off the plane with them
Nice TR mate!!
Love the photos and the footage. Waves looked amazing. Id be shit scared to try to surf in such a shallow reef. I’d die haha
Nice TR mate!!
Love the photos and the footage. Waves looked amazing. Id be shit scared to try to surf in such a shallow reef. I’d die haha
Your TR is sick mate, I wish my trip was as long as yours ha ha!
Dude that looks epic anf fun as f@#k!!! And here i am balls deep in studying!! Take me there nowwww please!!