There is something very welcoming about Visakhapatnam. You are greeted with the broadest of smiles and treated to some pristine clear beaches. Drives to the stadium or the nearest sightseeing spots are at most times accompanied by the sea on your side with a gentle breeze bowling across your face. It is a tourist’s delight and one can truly discover their love for the water with a short trip to Vizag. Kiwi top order batsman and Sunrisers Hyderabad’s latest recruit young Kane Williamson will vouch for that. After all he along with his teammates, Dale Steyn and Trent Boult to name a few, have been hitting the coast of Rushikonda (considered one amongst the best beaches in Andhra Pradesh) during their free time for a calm session of surfing. Williamson is one happy young lad when you ask him to describe his passion for surfing and time in Vizag so far. “I have been here in Vizag once before but it was only for a couple of days when we didn’t get to see much,” Williamson said in a chat with iplt20.com. “I have spent quite a bit of time here now with one of the local teams. We have managed to do quite a few things off the field. Some of the boys have been playing golf and a few of us have been going surfing most days which has been great fun. “I didn’t bring a surfboard here, that wouldn’t be a good sight on your first trip to the IPL,” he laughs. “We certainly didn’t expect to get any surfing done when we left home. But we have been fortunate to have a few days off recently. It has been nice to get away from a bit of cricket, get out of the hotel and have a bit of fun with some good activities.” Giving him good company with the surfboard is fast bowler Dale Steyn. Steyn is no stranger to thrill and adventure. In fact, Williamson says it was Steyn and the local staff here who did a bit of a research on the places where you could go surfboarding. “Dale is pretty good in it. He has done a bit more surfing than Trent Boult and myself. He is the one who told us about this spot and found out that we could do a bit of surfing here. He has been giving me a few tips and it has been good fun.” Not just Steyn, Williamson’s Kiwi teammate Boult too has developed a keen interest in surfing. “We have quite a few beaches in New Zealand and me and Trent live in a place called Mount Maunganui which has a very nice beach there. It has been tough for us to surf back home with cricket being a summer sport, so we both haven’t surfed much with us playing a lot of cricket. We both have picked up surfing only recently and we both are really passionate about it. There are a couple of other guys, like Moises Henriques, who have been trying to learn it over the last couple of outings. It has been good fun which is the main thing. Some of us just try our best and enjoy it.” With the amount of cricket being played, Williamson believes it is very important to switch off from the game for some mental freshness. “It is a good opportunity to get away and take a mental break from cricket for a day. There has been such a huge volume of cricket of late that it is good to find a bit of balance by getting away from the game and doing activities. It is just something that I enjoy doing along with Trent and a few other guys in our spare time if we can. We don’t always have that luxury. So it is good to do a bit of surfing in our time off and just relax. Not just surfing, we have been doing some team activities as well like quizzes and team bonding meetings. The boys are having a good time and if we can keep that positive energy and take it to the pitch, nothing like it.” The youngster has been mighty impressed with the beaches here as well which according to him have been great for surfing. Such has the fondness for surfing developed over a period of time that Williamson says most are keen on doing it almost every day. “There has been some really good waves on the beaches here and it’s been pretty cool. We had good waves to surf on pretty much all the time we hit the sea. There is a local guy here called Mel who has a few surfboards here and he was kind enough to let us borrow them. We have had a great time hitting the waves. I think surfing is all about enjoying it. “It was a lot of fun and it has almost become like a habit. All of them want to go everyday now. There are some beautiful beaches here and the people are really accommodating and always there to help and assist you.” Also, for him, surfing is a state of mental calmness as he says, “You certainly get away from a bit of things when you are out there in the water which is a must. It is good fitness as well. It is certainly a completely different domain when you are out there in the water which is one of the beauties of surfing.” Apart from the surfboard, giving Kane some good company is his guitar. “I have got my guitar and it has a broken string at the moment. I like to play a variety of stuff. I love listening to the Eagles. I like playing tunes that are new to me and has some nice guitaring to go with it. I basically just muck around in my room with it. Trent is much more of a guitarist and singer than I am,” signs off Williamson with a grin.