So my trip to Australia started off pretty stressful, I somehow managed to miss my flight from Christchurch to Brisbane the morning of the qualifying rounds of the Pro tour. So I had to fork out an extra $300 to get a flight up to Auckland and get on the next flight to Brizzy from there.

When I arrived in Briz I called my mate Dean Smith to get him to come and pick me up, he had to delay the contest from happening untill I got there…. I was probably the most hated person there on the day, and they made sure to give me plenty of shit on the microphone throughout the day. I had a good ride and made it to the top 16 head to head that afternoon.

I was up against my buddy Hank, and only one of us was to advance to the top 8 final the next day, I had two stand up passes and advanced to the finals.

The next day the contest was moved to South Bank on the Brisbane river, unfortunately this is possibly the roughest venue in the history of the earth and the world! And to make it even tougher I was head to head against the 07 US pro tour rookie of the year Adam Errington. We both had the best rides of the day but only one of us was to advance and unfortunately I was off to the beer tent and ended up placing 5th.

The head to head final came down to 14 year old ripper Harley Clifford and the defending pro tour champ Dean Smith, The rough water proved to be too much for the grommet and Dean came out on top.

The next 3 days were dedicated to a brand new type of contest, it was Chris O’sheas Pressure Cooker, the first freeride contest of its kind ever. It was held at the most epic location on the Clarence river in Grafton NSW, and the riding was the best I have seen in a while!
Check out photos, videos and the article at www.theliquidcircus.com

Peace be the journey.

Brad Smeele is proudly sponsored by:

Oakley
Mountain Dew
Ronix Wakeboards
Ballistics
Ju$t A Dollar
Skull Candy

www.myspace.com/bradsmeele

Hay there! I did an interview with TVNZ’s Mai Time show the other day, and it aired saturday on tv2, and again on their repeat show on sunday, here it is…

This is IT!!!! The final MDTV for 2007. Robett Hollis and Will Jackways were joined by young guns Jorum Makuru and Conner Harding and headed into the Cardrona backcountry. The last on-hill footage for the year!! SO CHECK IT OUT ALREADY!!!

The Crew – Will Jackways, Jorum Makuru, Tim Pierce, Conner Harding and Holler
PHOTO: Tim Pierce – www.dystomedia.com

The day started with a text from Will J saying John Melville from Cardrona was up the hill and could help us out with some transport. We rounded the troops at Will J’s with some of the infamous Snowmafia aka Napisan Plus Mafia rolling around with Jorum on his ghetto fresh bike with boots around his neck and Conner rolling in some stolen looking Snow Mafia Truck.

We made it up the hill and hooked up with John and Steven at the Groomer sheds. A quick gear check and plan and we were set. We got a ride up over to the top of Captains basin via Queenstown return on the back of the groomer and made our way across the ridge heading towards the top peak of Cardrona. First stop was a rock boost out bomb drop into a pond skim. Jorum got his growing rarotongan legs in overdrive, made the gap and almost across the pond. Classic!

Next spot was the infamous lil rock gap jump were many a photo has come out of. Jah Harris’ back 1 cover sequence, Joel Westcott hammers etc etc. A quick bit of shoveling around by the boys and we were good to go. It was a fun lil double line and work out sweet. Conner threw the illest front 3 off his toes, Will got a dope back 1 and it was a rad quick session.

A bit of lunch and I scoped a thread the needle lil line between some rocks. Something different! After that it was time to move on so we hiked up the ridge to lookout over Queenstown and Wanaka. AMAZING!! Then Conner stepped up next with a beast of a rock gap bomb drop! Props!!

Then it was hammer time!! We had scoped out this melted formed lake from across the valley and Will J named it “Avacado Lake” due to the obvious shape but with a smaller inner section made of ice and totally surrounded by water. I was up first to christen it, went WAY to fast and got bounced once I hit “Avacado’s” center ice and rag dolled across the lake ending upside down in the middle of the lake submerged head first in the freezing cold water. Drenched from head to toe – I got straight up JACKED!!! All my gear was done and I had no change so I was like “I’m gonna get it!!”. Pretty much got ROCKED AGAIN on Round 2 with the middle ice section eating me for breakfast. Jorum helped the cause and broke up the dreaded center and 3 time lucky was the call and I finally made it across.

It was time for fun with everyone hitting it up. The highlight was Will J with a perfect mid waterride front 1 butter to revert out of the lake. It was 6pm by now so the call was made to bounce only leaving a 30 minute hike to get out of the valley. Nothing like a rock climb after a big days hiking and riding. ahha.

We made it back down to the base with a few slushy turns in the arvo sun and finished off what I would call the most productive and funnest ending days ever. We left the car park at 7:20pm and made our way back to Wanaka. It was all high fives and celebrations back at Will’s until we got the word from Tim Pierce that our last tape we’d been filming on went bust and all our footage that everyone worked so hard on could be ALL GONE!!!!! GUTTED!!! So in this episode you actually won’t see everything that went down in it’s entirety but I think you get the idea that the day was epic and a SUPER FUN one at that!!!

WATCH MDTV EPISODE 19 HERE

So that’s if for MDTV for 2007. Thanks to you all for watching throughout the year. A big ups to Tim Pierce from Dystomedia for making this puppy a reality, to all the NZ resorts who have supported us, to the staff at Snow Park NZ, Cardrona, TC and The Remarkables for the top effort when we all rolled up, to all the kiwi shredders who threw down and made it happen and a final HUGE big ups to MD for backing this thing in it’s first season!!!! CHEERS HEAPS!!!!!!!

Liked what we’ve been up to? Well, NZsnowboard.com is producing a FREE DVD to come out with the May/June 2008 issue of NZ Snowboarder Magazine which will have a 2007 highlights show as well as a full TUITION EDITION – Trick Tips 101 video. This Trick Tips Film features all of NZ’s best riders includingLouis Purucker, Abby Lockhart, Will Jackways, Bevan Hall, Nick Brown, Jake Koia, Karl Dunham, Robett Hollis, Nick Hyne and Mitch Brown giving you all some tips and trick basics for jibbing and jumping. Dystomedia is going full speed on that at the moment so it will be great to see when it finally comes out next May.

ANYWAYS – THANKS FOR WATCHING and SUPPORTING MDTV!!

Bring on 2008 – BIGGER and BETTER we hope!!!! Peace.

- Holler, NZsnowboard.com

Wot up. So I’m in W.A and there is definitely no snow here. Getting up to 40 degrees some days!!

Since I got here I’ve seen the Redbull air race (on the river in Perth). Sik event, those pilots are sik!!!

Saw Bad Religion and Strung Out play and have been hanging out in Margaret River taking some pics of my boys from back home surfing (Toby Hurren, Zac Bary, Ross Burdon and Josh Parks). The surf here is off the hook! Well coming from Nelson its a bit more intense! My wrist and shoulder are still under repair so I’m still hanging out to get in the water.

Here’s a few random pics…

We caught up with Will Jackways at his home in Wanaka and had a talk through the riding that has gone down after the season finished in Wanaka. Plus we check out some of his extra footage shot by him and Abby Lockhart from all over the show!

Well i’ve just finished exams!! So I am so stoked I have all this time to surf so it is great!!

Had a QSS Billabong surf comp a couple of weekends ago and I got to the semis which is cool! I have another surf comp coming up on Dec 15th which is a international students comp; this should be fun and a great warm up to the NZ Nationals which I am coming over for!!

Ange x

Hey crew,

Just found out NZski.com have put a pic of me and some skiers up on some big truck.

The 40ft trailer attached to a Northern Southland truck will travel throughout the South Island transporting chilled and general freight, promoting Mt Hutt, The Remarkables and Coronet Peak.

Mean oi!!

Holler

Hey,

I’m in Dunedin at the moment. My buddy Mitch Brown got in a motorbike accident on Saturday and got pretty broke off.

I came down on Saturday and am with the whanau. Not 100% sure on his movements but I’ll be down here with the crew until it’s sorted.

Cheers.