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.
Whangamata surfer Ella Williams has claimed her maiden World Surf League (WSL) Qualifying Series (QS) victory of the year, taking out the Women’s division at the 2019 Mothernest Great Lakes Pro in heavy four-to-six foot surf at Tuncurry, NSW, yesterday. Williams ability to consistently post decent scores on longer running......
Luke Rogers and Ava Henderson rise to the top of a hungry pool of grommets at Round 3 of the South Island Grom Series held in fun waves at Porpoise Bay in the Catlins. Originally scheduled be held at Colac Bay, which was super fun for most of the day......
I’d been tracking it from a week out and it played the notes of the forecast with precision. For big wave surfing this was a classic: its deep fetch straight off the western edge of Antarctica, landing an almost direct hit on the southeast corner of New Zealand. Then, sometime......
Dragon takes a big step forward and raises the conversation around mental health in surfing, bringing together Dragon surf team athletes from Australia and New Zealand for a team trip with a twist … At New Zealand Surf Journal we don’t run advertorials. We’re 100 percent for the reader. But......
Mount Maunganui surfer Luke Griffin hit his straps at Whangamata this weekend taking out his first event in five years at the Billabong Grom Series presented by Oceanbridge. Luke was joined by Raglan based surfer Kai Woolf, who has recently returned to New Zealand from her native South Africa, as......
Tane Bowden has finished third at the 2019 Lake Macquarie City Pro Junior held at Red Head Beach and Catherine Hill Bay, NSW, at the weekend. The result boosts him to sixth overall on the Men’s Junior Tour. Aussie duo Molly Picklum and Caleb Tancred claimed victory over an impressive......
Cracking it in the pressure cooker that is the Australian surfing hotbed is no easy feat. Which makes 18-year-old Te Kehukehu Butler’s rise so impressive. In 2018 he was embroiled in a season-long battle with Callum Robson, of Evans Head, NSW, in the WSL Australasian/Oceania Junior Qualifying Series (JQS). At......
Raglan’s Caleb Cutmore and Christchurch surfer Tegen Bishop rose to the top at the first round of the Billabong Grom Series presented by Oceanbridge today at Mount Maunganui. Conditions dropped to a mere 0.5m swell with offshore winds at the Tay Street event site – just enough to complete the event.......
There is no doubting that Piha local Elliot Paerata-Reid is on a performance surge right now. His 2018 Indonesian season was sensational in and out of competition, but the Mega Swell of late July saw him paddling into some of the most intense waves ever witnessed at his favourite Indo......
Filmmaker Jono Smit and pro surfer Elliot Paerata-Reid team up for a Catlins strike mission only to have the rug pulled out from under them as the weather bomb flushes up the Tasman at the last minute. In an opportunistic stroke of madness they give chase along the West Coast......