There is nothing quite like first discovering a surf break that has been on your destination list. The adventure is even more exciting when you have to find the place first. The place I had on my radar for quite some time was ‘Nikko’ situated somewhere on the Nusa Dua coast of Bali. I had read about it over the last few years and from all reports it was one of the most perfect right handers in all of Bali. That was at least until 2012 when Chinese developers who were building a massive hotel decided to construct four rock walls into the lagoon. Then in 2018 they build a break wall with an artificial island right in the impact zone of the wave. Greedy developers and corrupt politicians had worked quickly & illegally, taking advantage of Indonesia’s disorganized bureaucracy to destroy what took thousands of years to create. However, despite all this there was still a perfect wave to be found, but unfortunately only when all the elements lined up.
The swell forecast for our arrival was very promising once we arrived at our hotel we wasted no time in organizing our scooters so we could investigate. We rode straight to ‘Temple Lookout’ just a few minutes from our stay. This was one of the best ‘surf checks’ I’d ever seen. Overlooking the whole Nusa Dua reef and up and down the coast. I could see a reef in the far distance and saw break walls too. I could also see plenty of waves going in there. As a surfer came by I asked him if that was ‘Nikko’ and he replied yes. I’d found it! Well almost…’Just go up the main road’ he said. He also mentioned he surfed it yesterday and was solid, overhead and near perfect Nikko. We headed off in the direction we assumed it was in and the anticipation started growing.
We stuck to the coast and a few different times found ourselves at the cliff face looking out over reefs but still no sign of Nikko. We asked a couple of people to no avail and ended up riding further down the coast, through local villages and not really knowing where we were going until eventually we seemed to come to a dead end. At the dead end, through some muddy puddles I thought we could, just maybe, get a glimpse of something past the line of bush. So I took the punt and rode through the mud. Got half way through and came to a complete stop! As I tried to rev and get going all that was happening was the wheels churning and spitting mud all over me. I eventually was able to push the bike back, although in my flip flops was a slow slippery process.
We decided to head back toward home having travelled up the coast around 20-30 minutes and thinking we must have missed it. But I kept thinking when I saw it from ‘Temple Lookout’ it didn’t seem this far. The bike tyres were already almost bald and with all the mud it made it a sketchy ride back. When we were almost home I said to Leanne lets just check this little driveway I saw before. We thought nothing of it and rode down it towards the coast through lush green forestry with the local monkeys all around. It was beautiful. Then we came to a steep road, which led down the steep cliff face, but already from the top, we could see that we had finally found Nikko. There was a right hander on the inside of the break wall that were quite small but you could also see waves crashing on the outside too. So we walked, and walked, along the beach to as close as we could get to see what the waves were like out the back. In the end it looked still a further mission to get out to the actual reef and way too fast with the main section breaking dangerously close to the break wall and no one in sight. We had found it yes, but today wasn’t Nikko’s day.
The kicker is as we rode back up the steep hill, through the lush green forestry past the local monkeys and came to the main road, we stopped, thought for a second left or right, only to realize the driveway to our accommodation was directly in front of us across the road! The whole time Nikko was 2 minutes from our room! In the end I didn’t even get the opportunity, or swell, to surf Nikko so it remains on my destination list but atleast now I know how to find Nikko.
