This was on right turn road 1520? I think

Where: South west tip, North Island New Zealand.

When: April autumn and chilly!!!

Where to eat: Oakura pub, beer on tap, nice n warm.

Where to go out: The local boardriders club at Fitzroy beach pumps, and after club 55.

After popping into the sou-west tip of the north island of New Zealand half way through last year and having a ball at the snow, in the surf and in a Zorb, (giant blown up ball you ride down a mountain, the things we do for fun ay) I was excited to go back to New Zealand for this new and exciting stop on the ASP Women’s World Tour! When young rookie Paige Hareb qualified for the tour in 2009 and then again in 2010 her and her parents could not think of a better spot to hold a WT event then the place she calls home Taranaki as it is a place that has been so good for her  surfing!

With reefs, beachies and beautiful scenery New Zealand cannot be surpassed for abundance and variety, even if the population of people is surpassed by that of sheep…

I chose to cruise NZ in a camper van, which is the thing to do there if you’re a tourist because the camp grounds are epic overlooking the whole coast with wireless! Just remember to put on your handbreak because you often pull up on cliff drops.

 

 

 

I do also have to say the trek to the contest each day was a little tricky as most kiwi’s seem adept at driving to the middle of no where and following some random paddock to find the surf. If your from anywhere else you end up in the middle of some small town with the locals laughing at you for how far you have come and thinking you’re an idiot!

“Oh yeah, Jim and Nancy let us use there property for the day so thanks to them for having us”…                            Meanwhile Jim and Nancy just happen to own the land with one of the most playful right- handers around! And I am still driving down the coast because I missed the 54^th right turn silly me!

 

 

 

looking out for sheep!

Above the clouds, Mt Taranaki^^^

 

The highlight of my trip was jumping on a helicopter ride with Fuel TV and taking in the breathtaking scenery around the coast of Taranaki and the mountain behind it with Sally Fitzgibbons who was recounting as many helicopter crash stories and scenes from movies that she could remember which made the adventure all the more enjoyable!

The contest ran the first day down the coast 20 mins from Oakura and then moved to Fitzroy Beach for the later rounds due to a massive cold, rainy and rather large change. I had my 3^rd round heat yet again against Paige Hareb and coming up against the local town hero in this event was somewhat a little unnerving and paige got me back for the last two events and moved through to quarter finals. It was hotly contested event and the door was wide open with the upset of the event Steph Gilmore going down to tiny Sarah Masonwildcard of the event and Carissa Moore the eventual winner displaying epic new school moves mixed with a strong solid back hand attack. She also donated her prize purse to the local Boardriding club (a cool 22 000 NZD) which was a completely selfless and kind hearted thing to do.

 

Welcome to Bells!

Life on Tour with Becs

Bells Beach, Victoria, Australia

 

Best wave: Winkipop

Best Restaurant/Caf?©: Swells near Bird Rock in Jan ¬†Juc

Best night life: Torquay pub, though you may need to jump the fence to get in.

Where: Bottom of Australia take a wetsuit!

For me Bells is one of those places I either love or hate depending on my mood. Generally I won’t lie I have a passionate hate for Torquay. I drive down the Victorian roads with an overly anxious feeling in my chest, generally to do with the fact I know there are 114 speed camera’s out to catch me (I had 4 speeding tickets in one week on double demerit point weekend last time I was here), not that I am a big speeder, I like to think I am a cruiser but in Victoria if your doing 106km/hr in a 100 zone then you get booked, no word of a lie, which makes it the police revenue raising capital of Australia so watch out on the roads!

So yeah I drove into the town with a close eye on the speedometer and checked the beach. It was flat, we had a one week waiting period and no swell was on the way. Not good news. Then the freezing southerly wind picked up fresh off the bottom of the world Antarctica and I thought yep welcome back to the Rip Curl Pro. 2010 was shaping into an excellent year for Bells.

Some people may call this negativity, well the positive people in the world but from a pessimists perspective this is what I call reality.

Ok, ok I will say I then went and met my old friend whose family I was staying with at Bells. There house is warm, the family is awesome, there were easter eggs, I had a comfortable bed and what the natural environment was not delivering on this year with waves and warmth, the people made up for, as always. You will find the Victorian people some of the more friendly people in Australia. Melbourne being the closest major city from Torquay also being one of, if not the best city in Aus, with amazing culture, food, people, street scenes and shopping.

The first day of the waiting period was Tuesday the 30^th of March. The girls were called on in what I can only describe as horrid conditions. Two foot and onshore, I was in the first heat, which was stacked with the ‘grommies’ Sally Fitzgibbons and Carissa Moore.

Sally had a couple of low scorers, Carissa had one wave and I needed a two to progress with seven minutes to go and the ocean went flat. Off to dredded round two for me!

 

Finding a face to turn on

I will not waffle about the contest too much, the conditions pretty much stayed the same, dribbly and hard to contest, when the waves are like this it does become a bit of a job, especially for someone like myself who has been competing since the age of fifteen, but you can’t control mother nature and I progressed into the quarter finals for another match up against Steph Gilmore.

I was feeling good and felt loose on my first wave. It was then about fifteen minutes into the heat I made a fatal error. I was sitting 2 metres from Steph and a wide wave swung in. I will ask .. have you ever been paddling for a wave and you are just too deep and you know it. Your instinct tell you your too late, don’t go and you listen. Then you instantly regret it as the wave reels perfectly down the line? Well imagine doing that and watching the World Champ in your sport love the fact you didn’t go and smash every section on this particular wave perfectly, flaring with brilliance. I wanted to go underwater and bash myself up, I had visions of punching myself repetitively but I stayed above water hating myself and watching a natural phenomenon of a water spout (which is a water tornado) touching the water about 200metres from me. This was the end of my Bells contest and onto New Zealand. With two major lessons learnt from Steph in the first two events. DON”T GIVE WAVES TO WORLD CHAMPS!! Even if you do go over the falls and get flushed and look like a kook!

 

 

 

Knee brace after medial tear trying to make the most of it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ROXY PRO BREAKDOWN 2010.

Where: Gold Coast Australia

When: Feb-March Summer time!!!

Where to eat: Bellakai restaurant, Greenmount.

Where to go out: Numerous event parties and The Cooly Hotel.

The last few months have been quite intense and the new competitive year crept up quicker than I expected. With exciting things like moving house, dealing with contracts, university exams, doing tax, Christmas/New Year and a knee injury from pulling into a wave in Maui way too late, smashing my whole body on my board, resulting in eight weeks out of the water and a medial tear later. Crunch, crunch The Roxy Pro was walking up the drive way about to knock on the door.

 

I spent much of the eight weeks talking to my knee every day (yes my knee) willing it to get better before the first day of the Roxy Pro started on the 27th of February. One week before the contest commenced I got the OK to surf from my physio and I couldn’t get out there quick enough! Well actually I couldn’t get out there quickly at all because I had spent eight weeks out of action (admittedly I was doing other training but no training is better for surfing than surfing itself) and was completely wimpy as some of my friends were referring to me.

 

After a week of surfing my muscles were slowly reviving themselves and after seriously thinking about pulling out of the event due to the knee pain and poor preparation, something just clicked inside and I thought I should go for it… the reason being if Snapper is pumping i will never forgive myself if i pull out and watch perfect flawless Snapper Rocks with two people out. Such an opportunity only presents itself rarely and i was not going to miss it!

The Contest:

Making it through my round one heat with a fair bit of hustle and bustle between Claire Bevo, Coco Ho and myself was nice as you avoid round two which is always pressure plus.

I then made it through my round three heat which can be seen here: Roxy Pro World Tour 2010 and some waves we scored!

It was a closely contested and exciting heat. Snapper lived up to it’s expectation. I was so happy to be given the opportunity to surf out at Snapper with one other person… being Paige Hareb and even happier with my decision to compete on my knee.

I then came up against Steph ‘Magic 3′ Gilmore in quarter final number two. Somehow managing to over commit myself on waves when it really wasn’t necessary and not finding a score in the messy conditions. Steph managed to put two average scores down then went on to win the whole event and full respect must be given to her as she is an amazing competitor!

At least I can say the winner took me out huh! Next week is Bells Beach Australia for stop number two.