The "Coolest" Race I've Done

For those just looking for the answer, it's the "Poor Knights Crossing" in Tutukaka North Island New Zealand

For everyone else, I will give you some more info.

Tutukaka is about 3 hours drive north of Auckland on the North Island of New Zealand. As you leave the city it doesn't take long to feel like you are somewhere completely different. The further you go the more you feel like you are on a pacific island (you are, but i mean fiji or vanuatu etc). Once you arrive Tutukaka is undeniably beautiful but to be honest there really isn't much there. It's a colourful little fishing town in an awesome natural harbour but it definitely seems like the population in winter could be in single digits.

The race is run by an absolute legend called Tim. He's a local paddler in the area and definitely knows how to bring the energy and enthusiasm to the event. He seems to know every paddler that shows up for the event personally and is so stoked to see everyone. He gave me a few stabs about being an Aussie but I think he's pretty chuffed that people have travelled internationally for his event.

So it seems like basically everybody who does the race stays at the hotel for at least the night before and most stay after the race as well. There's pretty much only the one place to stay so all the paddlers roll into town, check in and then you can't help but start meeting each other.

The night before the race is also the race briefing which is compulsory and to be honest I think this may have been the coolest bit of the whole event. They breeze through a bit of course details and start times etc before quickly moving on to the good stuff...

To set the scene we are all sitting in the event space at the hotel and by we I mean me, about 20 kiwi ski paddlers and then probably 80 local Waka Ama paddlers (outriggers) and these guys all look like they could play for the All Blacks in their spare time. I had no idea before I came but Waka Ama is a big deal on the North Island and is steeped in history. It's literally how the Maori's found New Zealand.

It's not a big room so it feels packed. Throughout the housekeeping for the event there's the standard murmur of a crowd of people who already know everything that's being said and aren't really concentrating. Basically every race briefing i've ever been to.

But then Tim invites someone who is clearly one of the elders of the area up and all of a sudden you could hear a pin drop.

He began to tell a story about how the Poor Knights Islands were formed, about the god that created them, and the wind and the mountain under which we were sitting. He asked them for safe passage for us all tomorrow and for the wind to blow the right direction.

At times the Waka paddlers would respond in Māori and the energy in the room kept building. Eventually the whole room started singing in Māori as if on que. Needless to say I just stood there with no idea what was going on, just trying to take it all in while also trying not to seem like the complete outsider that I was.

To finish one of the senior waka paddlers stepped forward and in Māori seemed to thank the elder.

And then, everyone sat down and just went back to normal. Maybe i'm just super uncultured and these guys do this all the time but it felt seriously special. If I didn't get to race the next day honestly I would say the trip was already worth it to be in that room with these guys and feel the feeling and depth to the race.

But I did get to race, and it was also awesome so let's jump forward to that.

The Poor Knights island sit about 26km off the coast of Tutukaka. Basically straight out to sea. Every year the race is either run from Tutukaka out to them or in reverse depending on the wind. My year I was lucky enough to start at Tutukaka. I say lucky because it's really quite unique to do a downwind race straight out to sea. Something feels a bit wrong. The only other time I've ever had this feeling is Molokai but even that is different when you can see Oahu is such a big landmass.

The Poor knights in comparison look tiny when you leave the harbour. Very easy to miss if you are a degree or two offline. They're two cliff rimmed "mountains" just randomly sticking out of the ocean 26km out with a channel about 200m wide in between them. This year we had to go through that channel and finish on the leigh side of the island.

So we also got lucky in that the wind was howling. The blessing from the night before had obviously come through for us and people were looking excited with a touch of nervousness, usually the best recipe for a good downwind.

We start in the harbour and its a good 2km of slog in the flat before we get out into the ocean. As we start to get away from the coast the runners start to build and it probably takes until about 4km before you can start to properly surf the bumps. Not a bad sign with 20km to go.

Honestly when you start its pretty hard to see the islands so we have a guide boat driving ahead. There are some good paddlers here too so we've got a little group starting to work our way out towards the horizon. The further we go the better it gets. after about 15km its seriously some of the most fun downwind I've ever had, you can't see anyone, there's two big rocks your aiming for the middle of in the distance and you barely have to take a stroke. At about 20km it almost started getting too good. It's not super warm in NZ in October and doing almost no paddling I was starting to get seriously chilly.

In the last couple of kilometers you can start to see the gap between the islands appear, the angle we were approaching the islands at had until this point made it look like we were paddling directly for a cliff. Here is when it started to get really fun though as the cliffs of the Poor Knights were sending backwashes back out into the runners in all directions and as you got closer they got even bigger. It was like the energy of the race had built up the entire hour and a half. From the flat water of the harbour to the growing runners as we had made our way out and then the climax of the backwash under the cliffs to finish.

But then it was all over. You surf through the channel beneath the cliffs and all of a sudden the ocean went flat. You are in the leigh of the islands and the race boat is waiting for you pulled up under the cliff.

So this is the other really cool thing. Everyone goes back to Tutukaka on the same boat. Meaning first across the line and has to sit and wait for last. No one can leave the finish line until everyone has come in which is awesome. You load your ski in the racks and help everyone after you out of the water and load theirs. This also results in the cheers just getting louder and louder as the "crowd" builds and the backmarkers make their way in.

The race boat is actually a marine biology survey boat and the captain seriously loves his job so before you start the voyage back to Tutukaka they take you on a tour of the islands, at one point they literally drove the boat inside one of the caves which was pretty wild.

Then we started the crossing back to the harbour and the awesome downwind conditions were of course not the most awesome conditions to be sitting on a boat. An hour or so slamming into the headwind got us back to the harbour and then we all unloaded and it was time to get ready for the presentations.

This was also really cool. There's no money on the event but true to form the prizes were way more unique. Local saplings of trees that grow only on the Poor Knights islands, art works from local artists and the epic perpetual blue glass trophy shaped like the bow of a traditional Waka awarded to the winner who gets to put it on their mantlepiece until giving it back to the race for the next year.

So start to finish this was unlike any other race I have done and if you are competent enough, would be the first race I'd recommend to anyone looking for an experience above and beyond the masses of the 20 Beaches or The Doctor etc.

I wrote this blog because one of my clients asked me to, so if you enjoyed it and wanted to read more things like this then feel free to send me an email with what you'd like to read!