A quiet Surfdale on a winter's weekday. It can be a different story on the weekend, or in summer, with some putting the blame on Malone's Irish pub, at centre. Photo / Michael Craig
It might be far from the glam of a winery terrace with a view of the setting sun over distant downtown Auckland, but is Surfdale really the underbelly of Waiheke Island, asks Cherie Howie.
Vogue once called it "the Hamptons of New Zealand", name-checking a dozen Waiheke destinations on a holiday hotspot revered for its "beaches, fabulous wineries and stunning emerald landscapes".
Central island suburb Surfdale wasn't among them, but this month earned a moniker of its own - Ibiza of the South Pacific.
A stoush between neighbours over noise and boozy shenanigans at the local pub, Malone's Irish Bar, culminated in accusations it was more Spanish party island than peaceful seaside settlement.
Malone's owner of 22 years, Ita Malone - whose application to the District Licensing Committee to keep her current on-licence hours of 9am to 2am, and ditch the weekend 12.30am one-way door policy, sparked the stoush - didn't want to comment last week.
In an earlier emailed statement she described the pub as a "longstanding, valued part of the Waiheke community" and she looked forward to addressing the concerns of those opposing her application.
Police, who called in their committee submission for the bar to shut at 12.30am, noted Surfdale had long been a problem area for the island's cops, including callouts to fights at the pub and several late-night drink-driving offences linked directly to it.
No individual figures are available for suburbs, but there were 21 proceedings (charges) for public order offences on Waiheke Island in the past year, compared to 108 processed at Auckland Central police station.
But some see the seaside suburb as Waiheke's worst.
"I hate Surfdale", a city friend says, after I let slip I'm heading across the Waitematā Harbour to find out more about the island's so-called underbelly.
"It has nothing we love about Waiheke - the sparkling beaches, the mansions on hilltops surrounded by sculptures, the Church Bay vineyards, and the glamour settings like Italy with lavender and herbs and beautiful young wedding parties.
"Think of any awful town and Surfdale has all the elements", my Auckland-based suburban friend continues.
"Bad housing, no proper swimmable beach, few services, no piped water, bad footpaths and lighting - if they have any - septic tanks, tiny shops, bogans … it's the place you want to leave as soon as you even think of going."
Phew.
Still, more than 2000 people call this central chunk of Waiheke's more populous western half home, staking their claim in a settlement slotted between Oneroa and Ostend and centred by a tiny cluster of shops, eateries and a pub, all a block back from tidal Huruhi Bay.
And when the Herald on Sunday visited on a wet winter weekday, months and meteorologically removed from Waiheke's usual traditional good-times season, no one looked too bothered by the absence of faux Italian aesthetics or sculpture-surrounded mansions.
Bisou Cafe is bustling, and at the local mini market, three doors down, the fellow behind the counter could share none of the experiences of mindless violence sadly familiar to so many of his brethren on the other side of the gulf.
Shoplifting's rare too, he says.
It might be far from the billionaire's club hideaways of Mainfreight co-founder Bruce Plested and New Zealand's richest person, packaging magnate Graeme Hart.
But is Surfdale little more than a dive favoured by the liquored and loose, or just misunderstood and maligned?
Location and resources landed Waiheke on the radar of several iwi long before the Crown began buying large blocks of land from the mid-19th century.
Within three decades, tourism had arrived - an 1886 Herald ad for a New Year's Day trip promised, among other pursuits, "dancing on the lawn".
But it'd be another three decades before the subdivision of Waiheke began in Ostend in 1915, and neighbouring areas such as Surfdale soon after, Auckland Museum curator Jane Groufsky wrote in her 2020 blog Changing Waiheke.
Named under part of a competition that earned the winner a section near the
beach, Surfdale property lots needed just a small deposit and daily payments of 8 pence, with marketing assuring proximity to downtown Auckland meant values "must go up and up and up", Groufsky wrote.
And, mother at least, would have plenty of time to reflect on her ballooning capital gains as she enjoyed a life "free from the drudgery of housework … sit[ting] under a shady tree for hours watching with shining eyes the delight of her bare-legged, brown and healthy brood", a 1920s Surfdale subdivision pamphlet promised.
The gush, however, hid the challenges of island life - electricity wouldn't arrive until 1954, more than 35 years after most of the country - and until 1987 a slow ferry was the only water link to the outside world, Groufsky wrote.
Nowadays, Fullers ferries cross the water between Waiheke and Auckland in 40 minutes, with Surfdale a further 4.7km by car or public bus.
And although the average property values for Surfdale fell by 7.4 per cent in the past three months, according to One Roof-Valocity's August house price report, average values remain an eye-watering $1.56 million. Island-wide average property values are $3.61m.
In June, a two-bedroom 1980s Surfdale home walking distance from the beach became the cheapest property sold on Waiheke this year.
A buyer understood to be looking for a rental investment bought the 60sq m Alison Rd cottage for $875,000 at auction, a $500,000+ capital gain since its previous 2010 sale, OneRoof reported.
It's the curse of the gorgeous - overseas media have similarly highlighted high property prices and jostling for rentals on Surfdale's cousin in the Med.
While Jim Mahoney's never been to the famous party island in Spain's Balearic island chain, he knows Ibiza's new Kiwi namesake pretty well.
"So you're going to ask me about the Ibiza of the South Pacific?", the Surfdale local of five years says.
He knows the original's favoured by young people taking "lots of party drugs", and the taxi driver supposes it's sometimes the same on Waiheke.
"I've noticed a few of my fares have had enlarged eyeballs and flushed faces. And I'm sure there's lots of pot grown and consumed on the island, but there has been since the 70s.
"So what?"
No, Mahoney concludes, Surfdale isn't Ibiza.
"It's not anywhere close to Ibiza. It's a small, quiet Kiwi town, and what I've found over here is that people are pretty damn decent.
"It's a really good place to live."
Mahoney's read the complaints - public sex, screaming, vandalism - but reckons he hears more noise from a flat of South Americans in Ocean Rd.
"[Surfdale's] a quiet dormitory suburb. The liquor shop closes about 9 o'clock and the lights start to go out soon thereafter.
"Malone's grinds on until early in the morning. But quite often there's nobody there. My wife, she's 41, her take on Malone's is that it's 'sad'."
He's seen bad behaviour outside, most recently 20 young women fighting on the road, Mahoney says.
"There was quite a bit of hair pulling."
But he doesn't consider the after-dark antics in Surfdale any different than other parts of the island, the 72-year-old says.
"I mean, I laugh about [that reputation] sometimes. When I drive people past I say, 'Here we are, the pulsating heart of Waiheke's nightlife'."
But while Mahoney's peace is more disturbed by the goings on at a lively Ocean Rd flat,
five neighbours joined island police and a council inspector in opposing Malone's liquor licence application.
The complaints of Sydney Thickpenny - whose Marama Ave home of 37 years is 150m from the pub as the crow flies - were the most spicy, citing sex on car bonnets, raging intoxicated patrons, smashing of car windows and "filthy" language.
"Malone's Irish Bar has introduced into our quiet seaside village its version of the wild nightlife of Ibiza, with all the noise and associated drunken anti-social behaviour with none of the checks, balances or boundaries", he wrote in a submission that also includes the names of four Marama Ave neighbours.
One street back, on Tetley Rd, Rose Russell shakes her head as she looks towards Malone's.
"You can see it's in a valley down there. It's unbelievable that was ever allowed to exist, with that amount of noise, in a residential area."
Even her double-glazed windows are no match for the noise.
"The one good thing about Covid is I had a break from that awful, awful noise ... I don't know about sex on cars, I've missed that bit. But the noise, even after they close … it's unbelievable."
She's certain other residents, like her, reject Malone's claims the pub is a valued part of the community.
"Like bloody hell it is."
Surfdale beckoned when Wellington's welcome proved too chilly after eight years teaching in the Middle East.
Five years on, Russell loves her adopted home overlooking Huruhi Bay.
"It's just mirror glass a lot of the time. I love that it's handy to everything I need. And I've got mostly very good neighbours.
"We look after each other."
Just over 17 per cent of Surfdale residents are, like 73-year-old Russell, aged over 65, similar to national age demographics, and with a difference of about 5 per cent each way compared to Auckland (fewer over-65s) and all of Waiheke (more over-65s).
The 2018 Census figures put Surfdale's under-20 population at 22 per cent, marginally more than to the rest of the island but below the Auckland and national figures of 26 per cent.
Sixty per cent of Surfdale residents are aged 20 to 64, similar to Waiheke, Auckland and New Zealand.
The settlement's traditionally been "very working class" with older, bach-style housing, but new houses are also being built, with more infill and infrastructure stretched, Russell says.
There's poverty in the community, which shares the challenges of unaffordable housing and a rental squeeze facing so many in the Auckland region, with the dire situation everywhere leaving those who are struggling with nowhere to go.
Mum-of-three Reilly Clare Behrns is among those who might have to leave the Surfdale, and the island.
A change in personal circumstances may mean saying goodbye to an "amazing" community that's supported her through recent tough times, she says.
She came home to a hot meal when her youngest child was born, and the day the Herald on Sunday visited another local was digging her a grave after her dog died suddenly.
"I love it here. My kids love it here. I'd stay forever if I could."
Her visits to Malone's have been uneventful - perhaps too much so for her boyfriend who, after reading that patrons were having sex in the car park, joked he's expecting more action on their next visit, the 41-year-old says.
"He said, 'I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed that my two trips to Malone's haven't been the full Waiheke experience'."
For the man whose submission against a liquor licence renewal first saw a blink-and-you-miss-it Kiwi village compared to one of the most famous party magnets in the world, the situation is more frustrating than funny.
A builder and joiner who lived in Australia and Papua New Guinea, Thickpenny and his then young family came home to build a life on Waiheke Island, where he joined the volunteer fire brigade and started at Waiheke High after retraining as a teacher.
"The last four years of my teaching career every child I taught passed School C", he says proudly.
He doesn't want to live anywhere else, but says Surfdale's "breaking" under the influx of partying hordes in the warmer months.
"We don't get any more coppers ... and [visitors] wanna party."
They're not renting family baches, he says, but homes owned by companies wanting a slice of the tourism pie.
Of Surfdale's 1044 dwellings, 77 per cent were occupied at the time of the 2018 Census, compared to 92 per cent across Auckland.
Locals' haunt Club Waiheke's also in Surfdale, but has soundproofing and closes by midnight, Thickpenny says.
"My neighbour does the karaoke there and he sings and croons, and I can't hear it from my house."
But by the time partying visitors make it to Malone's, its DJ machine thumping bass all evening - interspersed with "screaming electronic explosions" - consideration for others isn't high on their late-night plans, he says.
Last call brings no relief, with revellers spilling out on to the street and, too often, staying there.
In his submission, the 70-year-old described feeling as if "drunken thugs" are in his living room, leaving him and his family suffering psychological problems from sleep deprivation.
He no longer bothers contacting Malone directly, but going through official channels has been overly complex and time-consuming, and might explain others not doing the same.
"A lot of the community are with me. They say ... 'good on ya'."
And despite everything, he says Malone is a "wonderful person … with a kind heart" but has to be tough to control her pub "often by herself" in the early hours.
"I like her … if she walked up here now, she'd go, 'G'day Syd, that bloody thing in the Herald ya bastard, I could kick you in the balls'.
"It sort of seems like a pile on and we're all bastards … it's just not like that at all. This is our one opportunity to say, 'Good on ya love, but cut the damn noise out and get your patrons out of there at midnight - don't go to 2am."
On the day the Herald on Sunday visits, Malone's is closed.
It's quiet up on Marama Ave, and Thickpenny's just arranged for someone to mow his neighbour's lawns while the man, in his 90s, is in hospital.
He doesn't like the property looking unoccupied - a window's already been smashed, and he'll fix that tomorrow, he says.
The man who worries Surfdale is turning into Ibiza is living like it's the West Coast's Ikamatua, a dot on the map where those who choose its isolation must first rely on self, and second on each other.
Outsiders having "weird ideas" about the island generally isn't unusual, but he's never heard other Waihekeans knocking Surfdale, Thickpenny says, because they recognise its pluses - proximity to schools and the ferry, and wonderful views.
But if he did, he could take encouragement from Mahoney, whose local fares sometimes wisecrack about living in the upmarket part of a suburb Mahoney reckons some islanders still consider the "shabbier side of Waiheke".
"They call themselves, 'Surfdale Heights'", Mahoney says, stretching his vowels for effect.
He's on the lows. But life is good.
When the sky's clear and the tide's full, the man who dreamed as a boy of living surrounded by water takes himself to Surfdale Beach for some quiet time.
"It's absolutely beautiful. Does this look like the arse-end of Waiheke?", he asks, while getting his picture taken near the water's edge.
"Well, it's quite an attractive arse end."
Population: 2067 (at 2018 Census)
Age demographics: Under 20: 22 per cent 20 to 64: 60.5 per cent, 65+: 17.5 per cent
Distance from Matiatia Ferry terminal: 4.7km
Schools: Two - Te Huruhi Primary and Waiheke High
Average property value: $1.56 million
The police's National Dive Squad continued the search today.