Wakeboarders beat wet weather blues

Three guys bored with being stuck inside during Tauranga's downpour over the weekend found a novel way to make light of a bad situation.

And now the clip of Maurice Melligan and his two friends wakeboarding through floodwaters in Papamoa on Saturday has hit YouTube.

"We were just bored," Mr Melligan said.

The Bay of Plenty was drenched in heavy rain that caused flash flooding and chaos throughout the region over the weekend.

Mr Melligan and his friends had been kayaking and surfing earlier in the day "but that got a bit dangerous".

The lads were milling about inside a friend's garage when they found a wakeboard line and inspiration hit.

"That's what struck up the idea. Then my friends were like 'The Papamoa Domain'.

"So we ended up going there, found a huge pool of water and tried it out."

The men then travelled to the Parton Rd intersection with Papamoa Beach Rd where there was an even longer stretch of water at the side of the road.

"There were heaps of people beeping and taking photos. Heaps of people parking up on the sides and watching."

The make-shift wakeboarding session lasted from about 3pm to 5pm.

"We went back to the house and got more people and came back a second time but it got too cold."

Mr Melligan said he and his friends attended church on Sundays and often tried to find adventurous activities to do that kept in line with their faith. When he put the video of their shenanigans on Facebook "everybody laughed at it".

"There's all this bad stuff about the floods but we're making a bad moment good."