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.

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.

The search for a man feared drowned at Piha beach, west of Auckland, continued this morning.

A small cafe which caused a furore, protest and a three-year, $200,000 legal wrangle is now set to open in less than two weeks.

Songwriter extraordinaire Neil Finn is also proving himself adept as a property developer.