Ben Hurley

Well, it's been a 10-day tournament, and it started off kind of pretty average, to be honest, pretty small waves, pretty choppy.

We've had these easterly winds that have been really punishing.

Easterly is actually almost an onshore, believe it or not.

Right, yeah, it would be, yeah.

That's the way it wraps around.

And then it went dead flat, which was perfect for the competition because all the locals and the...

the pros all ended up at a real cookie, which is my little local beach and, um, absolutely ran the place.

They were getting really good waves, uh, just in the offshore breeze there.

And, um, then they all went on holiday, went to Hobbiton, had a great time around the region, checking out the Bridal Veil Falls and how good the Waikato's got to, um, all the good things Waikato's got to offer.

And then, um, the surf's just turned on in the last sort of 48 hours.

And, um,

Yeah, it's been really cool to see.

It's been like New Year's every night.

Andy, who organises all the gigs, our old ink bar owner, he's got everything G'd up and lined up, had some good DJs.

Everything's been sold out.

Yeah, it's great.