Tag Archives: surfing

Gisborne’s Where the Surf’s At

Gisborne’s Where the Surf’s At

In a Condé Nast Traveler feature, pros weigh in on the best places in the world for a surf trip – whether it’s for learning the sport, testing your chops on six-foot swells, or…

Aotearoa Women’s Surfing Breaking Stereotypes

Aotearoa Women’s Surfing Breaking Stereotypes

Though movements to boost women’s participation in surfing are taking off in the Pacific region, New Zealand mother-of-two Kelly Murphy remembers the challenges she faced as a teenager trying to make a career out…

Travel Lockdown a Blessing for US Surfers

Travel Lockdown a Blessing for US Surfers

Back in March, photographer Ridge BenBen and surfer Joe Kisling, both from the US, travelled to the South Island for the Single Fin Mingle logging contest, an annual event that describes itself as a…

Team GB’s First Olympic Surfer is NZer Jay Quinn

Team GB’s First Olympic Surfer is NZer Jay Quinn

New Zealander Jay Quinn, 36, is well-placed to become Team GB’s first surfer at the Olympics – thanks to a rekindled enthusiasm with the sport and his Welsh-born mother. BBC Sport Wales correspondent Dafydd…

Pits and Puts with Surfer Kehu Butler

Pits and Puts with Surfer Kehu Butler

“Kehu Butler may hail from New Zealand, the land of lefts, but you’d never guess that by the regularfoot’s powerful forehand in his new edit,” Ben Waldron writes for SURFER magazine, which features the…

Future Looking Bright for Surfer Paige Hareb

Future Looking Bright for Surfer Paige Hareb

“A world tour consisting exclusively of wavepool events would, without doubt, see Paige Hareb crowned as world champion,” Sean Doherty writes for Surfer magazine. The 28-year-old New Zealander was “sparky” at Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch,…

Young Surfer Ariana Shewry off to California

Young Surfer Ariana Shewry off to California

In October, Oakura surfer Ariana Shewry will fly to Huntington Beach in California to represent New Zealand at the world junior champs. The 15-year-old recently took visual journalists Andy Jackson and Simon O’Connor on…

Chasing Waves on a 13,000km Motorbike Trip

Chasing Waves on a 13,000km Motorbike Trip

In March, Byron Bay friends Torren Martyn and Ishka Folkwell travelled throughout New Zealand on motorbikes looking for the country’s best surf spots. Surfer magazine caught up with the pair for a synopsis of…

Artist Paul McNeil Muses on Goofy As Surfing

Artist Paul McNeil Muses on Goofy As Surfing

The lackadaisical, drooping C-shape wave mural reflects the irreverence with which New Zealand-born, Byron Bay-based artist Paul McNeil approaches most topics, from surfing and surf culture to music and politics to philosophical ruminations, Matthew…

Wanderlust, NZ Retreats One of the Best Surf & Yoga Destinations

Wanderlust, NZ Retreats One of the Best Surf & Yoga Destinations

Wanderlust in Raglan has been cited in a Travelers Today article listing the world’s best surfing and yoga destinations. “If you want some girl time with your friends and families, visit the all-female surf and…

Tui Wordley Still Making Waves at 80

Tui Wordley Still Making Waves at 80

Tutanekai “Tui” Wordley should be an inspiration to every surfer. Not because of the size of the waves he rides or the latest overseas trip he’s made, but because, at 80, he’s still out…

NZ Surfing’s Great Underdog Story – Daniel Kereopa

NZ Surfing’s Great Underdog Story – Daniel Kereopa

“Daniel Kereopa sees himself as an underdog. And depending on your vantage, he’s right,” writes Zach Weisberg for The Inertia. Kereopa has deep Maori heritage in New Zealand. His hometown Raglan is the…

Daniel Kereopa – Face of New Zealand Surfing

Daniel Kereopa – Face of New Zealand Surfing

Watch this video clip by The Inertia and listen to Daniel Kereopa talk about his journey to become New Zealand’s Ultimate Waterman. He was crowned the first ever Ultimate Waterman in 2015 and has…

Queenstown: Seals to skydiving

Queenstown: Seals to skydiving

100% Pure New Zealand presents an amazing Queenstown experience with surfing, seal spotting, bungy jumping, skydiving and enjoying a few drinks and an epic view with new friends.

Westcoast Surfing

Westcoast Surfing

Watch the beautiful video by Sammi Kim as he takes amazing shots of surfing at the beaches of West Coast New Zealand. The video was shot with vintage glass…

Air New Zealand’s Safety Safari

Air New Zealand’s Safety Safari

Take a look at the newest Air New Zealand safety video based on some of the world’s most stunning surf breaks. Air New Zealand partnered with some of the…

New Zealand Final – Rip Curl GromSearch 2014-2015 New Zealand Series

New Zealand Final – Rip Curl GromSearch 2014-2015 New Zealand Series

The final stop of the Rip Curl GromSearch saw plenty of action in clean waves at Fitzroy Beach, New Plymouth, Taranaki with six new champions crowned, and two international…

Living a Kiwi Life – Ep. 35 – Flyboard Queenstown

Living a Kiwi Life – Ep. 35 – Flyboard Queenstown

This time the couple decided for a full on adrenaline rush when they decided to take on the challenge of Flyboarding in Queenstown. It was nothing short of pure….

Daniel Kereopa Wins the Ultimate Waterman Crown

Daniel Kereopa Wins the Ultimate Waterman Crown

New Zealander Daniel Kereopa has been crowned the inaugural Ultimate Waterman this Saturday, 21st March, toppling seven international athletes to claim the title. The kiwi went into the final day of The Ultimate…

Activist Paddling

Activist Paddling

New Zealand-born Billabong surfer Dave “Rasta” Rastovich, 32, has paddled 350km from Taranaki to Piha to raise awareness about seabed mining off New Zealand’s coast. Rastovich, who lives in Australia, has been drumming up…

Surfing Strength Studied

Surfing Strength Studied

A new study led by Oliver Farley from Auckland University of Technology (AUT) and published in the August issue of The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research looks at professional surfers to analyze the…

Surf Lover and Journo

Surf Lover and Journo

Highly respected veteran journalist Graeme Moody has died while surfing at New South Wale’s famed Angourie Point. He was 60. Wellington’s Newstalk ZB cancelled regular programming the day Moody died, such was the level…

Toppling The Big Gun

Toppling The Big Gun

Raglan’s Billy ‘The Kid’ Stairmand knocked out American 1-times world champion surfer Kelly Slater from the Telstra Drug Aware Pro at Surfers Point in Western Australia inflicting the shock upset on the superstar after…

Windswept Win

Windswept Win

Mount Maunganui surfer Matt Lewis-Hewitt, 19, has won the Championship Moves Pro Junior in Victoria, becoming the first New Zealand male to win an Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) event in Australia since Maz…

Swell Protection

Swell Protection

Nineteen New Zealand top surf breaks will now be officially protected from inappropriate use and development under the revised New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement which came into effect in early December. New Zealand is…

Relentless Finish

Relentless Finish

Gisborne surfer Jay Quinn, 27, has taken second place at the ASP Relentless Boardmasters competition in Newquay, England. Quinn said of his placing: “I’m happy because it’s a career best result for myself…

Formidable Kicks

Formidable Kicks

Two surfing legends are taking on New Zealand’s most rugged waves off the coast of Fiordland for an episode of the Discovery Channel series Storm Surfers. The Storm Surfers’ — Australians Tom Carroll and…

Masons Make Waves

Masons Make Waves

New Zealand-born surfing sisters Sarah and Airini Mason have finishing first and second respectively at the Billabong Pro Junior in Raglan in May. The Cabarita-based siblings who have grown up surfing the point breaks…

She’s a Sensation

She’s a Sensation

Fifteen-year-old wildcard Sarah Mason surprised the crowd at New Plymouth’s Fitzroy Beach beating current surfing world champion Stephanie Gilmour in the third round of the TSB Bank Classic. Mason handled the 1–1.5m waves more…

For the Pros

For the Pros

The New Zealand company behind Europe’s first artificial surf reef at Boscombe in Bournemouth, ASR Limited, has said the reef, now opened to the public, would provide a “substantial benefit” to the beachside community in terms…

Reef makers

Reef makers

Raglan-based marine consultants and artificial reef designers ASR Ltd are profiled in surf publication Drift magazine. Drift’s George Mojo talks to ASR principal Dr Kerry Black about reef-building and creating “surfable waves” without environmental…

Promise at Piha

Promise at Piha

The world’s top young surfers will take to the waves at Piha from January 20–28 next year competing in the 2010 Quiksilver ISA World Junior Surfing Championship. The event will attract 250 of the…

Taranaki’s Silver Surfer

Taranaki’s Silver Surfer

Taranaki teenager Paige Hareb has stunned the international surfing world by reaching the final of the Billabong World Pro Junior in Sydney. Hareb, 17, finished in second place behind Australian favourite Sally Fitzgibbons,…

The Great Indoors

The Great Indoors

Waikato University’s “maverick oceanographer” Professor Kerry Black is one step closer to making surfing an indoor spectator sport with the launch of Versareef in Orlando, Florida. While several pools around the world already feature modest artificial wave…

Wave Watching

Wave Watching

The Surfer’s Path features top New Zealand surf spots in its 50th edition. In a gallery of images titled “Aotearoa Light Play”, one of surf photography’s greats Aaron Chang and rapidly rising star Brian Nevins captured…

46 South

46 South

New Zealand surfing photographer Paul Kennedy plunges into the Deep South to an emerging big-wave scene. “In New Zealand, size comes at a price. The trade-off for being the only part of the country…

Airini Surfs Up Rankings

Airini Surfs Up Rankings

Gisborne’s Airini Mason scored the highest ever placing by a New Zealand female surfer at an international event, finishing third at the Billabong Girls’ Easter Surf Fest in Queensland, Australia. Mason is now ranked 69th on the…

“Crazy Kiwi” Charges Hard

“Crazy Kiwi” Charges Hard

Christchurch surfer Doug Young won the ‘Deep Throat’ award at the 2004 Red Bull Big Wave event in South Africa. The ‘Deep Throat’ prize goes to the “hardest charger” – the surfer who braves the biggest, messiest waves without…

Making Waves Out of Raglan

Making Waves Out of Raglan

Kerry Black and his Raglan-based company, ASR (Artificial Surf Reef Ltd), are the focus of a SunSpot article on improving surf on America’s East Coast. A former Waikato University lecturer, Black is at the forefront of artificial…

Surf’s Up in Cornwall

Surf’s Up in Cornwall

Waikato University’s resident surf expert – Dr Kerry Black – is helping create waves in Cornwall, where a £6 million proposal for constructing an artificial reef is currently under negotiation. Black and his team of marine…

Riding On

Riding On

Maz Quinn proves he’s no grommet as New Zealand’s first representative on surfing’s elite World Championship Tour and sets the pace during the opening round on Australia’s Gold Coast. “I’m stoked to get through, I’m flying…

Wave Action

Wave Action

A South Pacific-style reef in Bournemouth is the brain child of Prof Kerry Black of Waikato University. The big waves will help turn the resort into the next “coolest city in the universe”.