Founder of the Good Surf Now app, Ben Barr lived and breathed conservation until a surfing accident ruined his life. Whangārei writer Josh Gale shares his remarkable comeback story.
There was a moment when Ben completely fell apart. He had been teaching Conservation and Environmental Management at NorthTec Wānanga, pushing through chronic pain, sleeplessness, and anxiety caused by a surfing accident three years earlier. He kept showing up to pay the bills and support his family until something finally gave way, and the wheels completely fell off.
“In some ways my breakdown was a good thing,” Ben says. “I’d been fighting and trying to navigate a way to good health. But it wasn’t going to happen. I had to fully accept the new me, including my health, the pain, and the sleep deprivation. In some ways it felt like giving up, but I’ve since learned it was radical acceptance. Ironically, that’s when I started healing.”
“In some ways my breakdown was a good thing. I’d been fighting and trying to navigate a way to good health. But it wasn’t going to happen. I had to fully accept the new me, including my health, the pain, and the sleep deprivation. In some ways it felt like giving up, but I’ve since learned it was radical acceptance. Ironically, that’s when I started healing.”
As well as a surf frother, Ben is one of New Zealand’s leading lizard experts and sits on both the New Zealand Technical Advisory Group and the expert panel for the New Zealand Threat Classification List.
His passion started early, at just six years old.
After school, he headed to the Gold Coast to chase waves while completing a Bachelor of Science in Wild Biology. Returning home, he began working in conservation with the Department of Conservation on Kapiti Island, helping protect the hihi (stitchbird). Roles across the West Coast, Fiordland, and the Central North Island followed, but it was lizards that truly captured him.
He went on to complete a Master’s in Conservation Biology, specialising in herpetology, on Great Barrier Island, with waves always part of the plan. Chasing rare species took him to some of the most remote parts of the country, his Morris 6’1″ surfboard never far away.
Then came the session that changed everything.
“I took off on a heavy Northland beach break, a big sandy right-hander,” Ben recalls. “At the bottom of the wave, I went over the handlebars, hit my head on the surface, got whiplash, and then got rinsed.”
Unaware he had sustained a traumatic brain injury, which is more common among surfers than many realise, Ben kept surfing. Then again the next day. And the next. He didn’t realise he was making it worse. Three days later, while doing pest monitoring in the bush, things unravelled.
“I started overheating, feeling nauseous, and then this headache just exploded,” Ben shares. “I thought I was having a brain aneurysm and that I might die. I even sent my wife my GPS coordinates in case I didn’t make it out.”
The headache did not go away for three years.
After the diagnosis, everything changed. Ben couldn’t surf for two years. What had been central to his identity was suddenly gone, replaced by chronic pain and exhaustion. His connection to conservation began to unravel, too. Forcing himself to keep teaching led to PTSD associated with the very work he once loved.
He had to let that go as well.
“It was a really tight spot, physically, mentally, emotionally, and financially,” he says. “I had to try and figure out who I was and build a new version of myself.”
“It was a really tight spot, physically, mentally, emotionally, and financially. I had to try and figure out who I was and build a new version of myself.”
Eventually, he hit rock bottom.
Ben had to quit his job and committed fully to recovery. For months, he slept all night then two hours during the day. He began meditating daily and explored neuroplasticity – learning how to rewire his brain to cope with pain. He also began reconnecting with his whakapapa.
“When I first quit my job, I enrolled in wānanga and studied Te Reo for two years,” he says. “I reconnected with my iwi, Tainui Awhiro, in the Raglan area. I had grown up disconnected from it, but then it pulled me in.”
Through reconnecting with whānau and community, he found something he had been missing.
“It was everything for me.”
As his health slowly improved, the pull of the ocean returned. But even getting to the beach was a challenge. Fuel costs made every trip a gamble. Unable to work, Ben couldn’t justify the $10 of petrol for the round trip only to discover it was flat or mush.
“I thought, what if I could put an old phone on my mate’s window so I could check the surf first?”
That idea grew. Ben began aggregating free online surf cams and using his science background to figure out accurate surf forecasting, and realised he could build something bigger. Something useful. Something accessible.
And that’s how Good Surf Now was born.
Launched in 2021 as a forecast-only platform, it expanded in 2024 to include surf cams when the Kiwi site Surf 2 Surf sold to an American multinational. Now with thousands of users and 20 unique cameras, Good Surf Now has helped surfers throughout the country save time, money, and frustration.
“Building the website and app gave me my confidence back and helped me heal,” Ben says.
More recently his connection to conservation has begun to return, but in a new and healthier way. Family trips on DOC Great Walks have eased him back in. Sharing knowledge with his kids, who had not known him as “the conservation dad”, reignited his passion.
“They’re fascinated by it,” he says. “That’s brought some of the love back.”
Now, conservation is part of his life again, but on his own terms.
“I’m back doing lizard work for fun and to help pay for the website,” he says. “In 2021, I described a new species, the kakerakau skink, for DOC. I’ve also continued publishing research and helping assess extinction risks to our reptiles.”
In that regard he admits the situation remains serious.
“A lot of our mainland lizard species are gone or going.”
He hopes they can have a come back story, too.
So what can everyday people do to help New Zealand’s native lizard species survive?
• Keep cats indoors at night
• Volunteer with local pest-control groups
• Preserve native scrub on your land