Inspiration
Meet the people who weave life into the fabric of surfing. We profile interesting characters with an amazing story and an obsession with the ocean. Read about up and coming surfers and crusty old locals who smell like billy goats and ride single fins. If they have a story to tell, you’ll find them in here. Come and be inspired by artists, business gurus and thought leaders in our well of inspiration.
The Nats for 2023 have started at Piha with fun 2-3 foot waves providing some quality contest conditions. After two days of competition here’s our pick on the likely candidates for the 2023 titles. Even in the first few days of competition it is clear there are some favourites emerging......
The Nats for 2023 are underway at Piha, but where are some of our best surfers? Let’s address one of the elephants in the room with Nats 2023: the missing players. Why are so many of our best surfers missing in action. Consider this: Paige Hareb isn’t in attendance. She’s......
The swell that was supposed to kick in yesterday begins to fill in by the next morning. We are ready and champing at the bit. The funnest wave in the world awaits us … The routine we set on these early days becomes the everyday ritual for the trip. We......
New Zealand Surf Journal asks the New Zealand surfing industry to rank our 10 best surfers. The concept is simple: include not just the best competitors, but also our very best free surfers and underground chargers. This is who they came up with as we head into 2023. THE CRITERIA......
Taranaki surfer Daniel Farr won the Nationals at Westport in 2022, taking down form surfer of the event, Billy Stairmand, in one of the most exciting finals ever seen in New Zealand. The quiet, reserved surfer always believed he could do it. Now he has his sights set on the......
Mount Maunganui photographer Rambo Estrada has won the coveted surf category award at the annual Monster Children Photo Competition. Rambo was invited to the annual Monster Children Photo Annual launch (issue 71, on sale HERE) held at MC’s new offices in Waterloo, Sydney, in early December. The winners of the......
A photo of New Brighton’s pier has given photographer Sean Pritchard the edge to be named the winner of the 2022 Carve Magazine Surf Photography Competition. “I am incredibly stoked to take out the 2022 competition with so many incredible photographers taking part,” Sean told NZSJ. “The standard of photography......
Surfing is in a great place right now. The embarrassing adolescent stage is over and instead we have a synergy of old and new. Lopez’s unique career was the forerunner for all of this. His recipe for success seems simple: family, diet, health, open-mindedness and... it’s got to be said,...
Macaronis has become such a famous wave that you need to book a slot to surf it. Which we did for two days … just as a new swell arrives. That’s the magic of having one of the most connected surf operators on board. So, it took us all by......
I met emerging filmmaker George Syme hanging with Tom Butland at the Scholastics in Taranaki earlier this year. They were about to release a film and I had seen enough of Tom’s surfing to be curious. Well, more than curious … I knew it was going to be special. It......