REVIEW OF 2024

Our Story

Christmas is upon us, the year of 2024 is about to finish soon, we take a look back to reminesence about the last 12 months....

While I’m writing this, I am sitting in a nice house just north of Christchurch with a fluffy cat on my lap. How did that happen? Well, while we usually live in our van all year round, we tend to find a place to hide over the Christmas / New Years period. House sitting and getting our fix of pets is a great way of being off the road while it is super busy everywhere. It’s the same place we stayed last Christmas and it almost felt like coming home!

For New Years 2024, we left our house sit outside of Christchurch and moved into the city for another house sit near Ferrymead. The bonus was that we managed to get on the water nearly every day, some days in Lyttelton Harbour, some days at the Estuary. Great fun to connect with old friends and make new ones.

Mid January it was time to get back on the road. We spent a few days around Lake Tekapo and Pukaki, just to get blown off the water regularily by over 40 knots funneling down the lakes. It was pretty fun and exciting, but we were on the hunt to find some more user friendly conditions to be ready for when our guests for the Canterbury Lakes Discovery Trip were arriving.

Then, end of January, we had Rick from Australia coming for a Custom Canterbury Lakes Discovery Trip. He has already been here the year before and loved it so much that he came back! Despite it being his second year in the Canterbury Lakes, there were a lot of new spots for Rick to discover and we had an absolute ball. And guess what? Yes, he booked again for 2025! Read the Trip Report of Ricks Custom Canterbury Lakes Trip here.

In February we kicked off with our standard Canterbury Lakes Discovery Trip. A fantastic group of 9 water sport enthusiasts (windsurfers and wingers) had a whale of a time. Wind and a different spot every day, what more do you want? If you want to read what you missed out on, here you go.

After this group left, we spent a few more weeks around the lakes. We found some crazy wind in Wanaka (my 3.3m sail was too big!), before heading to Lake Clearwater for the CWA (Canterbury Windsports Association) Womens Weekend. It was great to see that many other wahine on the water – windsurfing and wingfoiling. Women only events have such a different vibe, especially in a sport that’s often dominated by men. Read our blogpost about Lake Clearwater here. You are wondering how Bevan did get along? Well, he was hanging out with the few other men…..

After a fantastic week in Lake Clearwater we run out of food and water and it was time to make our way further north – we had some jobs to do in Taranaki. Crossing over to the North Island in mid March saw us spending a few days in Wellington before heading north along the West Coast (a now very familiar drive). A short week in Taranaki, just enough to get our jobs done, before we reached Auckland to drop off some of that excess gear that accumulated over the last few months in and on our van (rentals returned in the South Island needing to go back north,….)

It was still too early for us to make our way to Northland, and we were eager to explore the East Cape. So far we always skipped that corner of New Zealand, as we felt we didn’t have the time it deserved. Not so in 2024!

A few days in the Tauranga area over Easter saw us exploring Tauranga Harbour by windsurf and wingfoil before heading further east. We didn’t linger in the Bay of Plenty as we wanted to catch up with a friend of ours in Opotiki who was about to go on a holiday. Spending a day with Trevor and his partner in Opotiki was fantastic and we enjoyed exploring the area by bike. Watching the local horse trials gave us a first impression of what the East Cape was about to bring.

The distance between Opotiki and Gisborne around the coast is less than 330 km. It takes most travellers maximum a week to get around the cape – it took us 2 months! Yes, we had an absolute blast! It felt like a trip back in time: Horses in the villages instead of motorbikes, friendly people, interesting old buildings – we loved it! And we loved speaking to the locals and spending time with them, it was a great experience and very different to what we expected.

Early June it was time to head to Northland for our winter Surfaris. This year we had 5 Northland trips on the calendar. Initially it was only 3, but due to high demand we added 2 more: a Bonus Trip in August, and – inspired by the Womens Weekend at Lake Clearwater – a Wahine (Women only) Trip in June. Read our blogpost about our Northland season here.

September saw us a few weeks in Auckland for Bevan to improve his winging skills. Hanging out with friends, frequenting our old playground Point Chevalier, it’s been a very pleasant time. Though a big city is not our preferred hang out, so we eventually made a move south. It was still a few weeks before the Taranaki Wave Classic was calling us to Taranaki, so we opted to stay inland for a bit and check out Taupo. This is another great playground – excellent winging and mountainbiking at your doorstep and beautiful scenery. Though with the southwesterly winds coming straight off the snow capped mountains and across a cold lake it was a bit too cold for our liking this time of year!

We then travelled along the Forgotten World Highway from Taupo to Taranaki in October for the Taranaki Wave Classic. Arriving a few weeks before the event we had time to test the water and catch up with friends – it was nice to be back wave sailing! The Taranaki Wave Classic was another great event, with plenty of wingers joining in with the fun this year (read the Trip report about the TWC here). This inspired us to offer a dedicated wingfoil wave Surfari for 2026, our Taranaki Wave Riders Trip.

In November we dropped briefly back into Auckland to pick up a few more rental boards to go to Wellington and the South Island. Our anual migration took us across Cook Strait in late November. While we do enjoy our time in the North Island, we also love being back in the South for summer. I guess it’s the contrast between the two islands that makes it for us – both have their benefits and very unique spots. And travelling with the season we can always find the best spots for wind and good conditions.

Nelson has been treating us very well with sun and wind every day in early December – and with no time constraint, there was no reason to leave. We spent nearly 3 weeks there, wingfoiling and windsurfing on a variety of spots: The Yacht Club, Backbeach and Atawhai. Depending on wind and tide, these spots compliment each other perfectly.

Now we are back in Christchurch to spend the busy time of year house sitting. We are already getting excited about our Canterbury Lakes Trips in the New Year and are looking forward to meeting lots of fun people.