Susan Edmunds takes to the water with a surf school - and manages to do without Piha Rescue.

Surf Life Saving NZ's Big Wave Classic held at Piha.

Gill South gets her moles checked by an Auckland expert dedicated to the cause.

Awhitu Lighthouse, on a beautiful peninsula on the south-western shores of the Manukau Harbour, has remarkable views of the coast.

At New Zealand's most famous surf beach - and the birthplace of modern surfing - an environmental battle is being fought on several fronts.

The wild west coast is worth a day trip with a couple of stops along the way, writes Libby Nicholson-Moon.

Living in Piha is a dream come true for serious surfers, but it's the sense of community, too, that makes it Craig Levers' favourite place to be. He tells his story to Peta Stavelli.

Big money is being lost on waterfront land sales.

A teenager is missing, presumed drowned, after he was washed off his boogie board at Piha yesterday.

Police are trying to establish what up to five men were doing on Piha Beach's Lion Rock in the moments before two of them fell 60m.

The first medical officer on the scene after two men fell from Piha's Lion Rock found one man hardly breathing and the other with mangled legs.

Two men are fighting for their lives after falling more than 20 metres from Lion Rock on Auckland's west coast early today.

Kiwi Ben Poulter is just two great waves away from the grand final at the ISA junior world surfing championships at Piha.

The NZ team have been making the most of their limited build-up for the World Junior Surfing Championships beginning in Piha.

Things get a little rough in the conclusion of Graeme Lay's story of the first surfers on one Kiwi beach.

Phoebe Falconer checks out another great summer holiday place within an hour's drive of downtown Auckland.

Sun, sea and the birth of surfing: the second part of a four-part story by Graeme Lay.