A Cheshire cat is a feline with a permanent grin as made famous by Lewis Carroll's 1865 tale Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. It's a fitting description for the look on the faces of surfers living in Dunedin this past weekend.
Hopefully you got to see the beach through the almost snow, hail and rain at the start of the week. It started out big and wild on Monday and by Friday it was bigger and even wilder at St Clair Beach. With the storm swinging out to the east like a pendulum beneath New Zealand it meant the swell, while big and wild, was clean and promised plenty of waves to come.
Needless to say from Thursday onwards surfers across the city would have started to get itchy feet. It's hard to concentrate on work or anything else when the surf is pounding through your imagination. And so the pilgrimage began with the grunty swell wrapping around the peninsula and breathing life into some of the most revered North Coast surf spots.
We joined the fray and got to witness some incredible surfing happening at Karitane and a few sneaky spots along the coast. By Saturday morning the east in the swell direction had increased and more spots closer to the city began to fire. By Sunday we had surfed from Karitane to Brighton ... more than 10 different spots and all with moments of perfection.
We hope you enjoy this week's images from a weekend in our very own coastal wonderland. There may have been permafrost on the boulder-strewn shoreline at Blackhead, but thanks to people like our mates at Seventhwave wetsuits we can make the most of what's shaping up to be an epic winter of surf.
See you at the beach ...
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