Over Labour weekend The Maori Nationals were on in Taranaki. I arrived up there 2am on Saturday after an event at church on friday night, and was up at 7am to hear the call of where the comp was. The comp was held at Rocky lefts which is down the west coast from New Plymouth, luckily they were holding the open shortboards and juniors all day Saturday which meant I had a free day to go surfing.

The longboards were held on Sunday, again the comp was a t Rocky Lefts whcih was pumping!! Epic 3-5ft surf with a strong offshore on it. I won my semi final and was through to the final. I had a shocker of a final ay, first of all I dropped in on Jamie Andrews (but pulled off before I obstructed his wave), then I caught an epic wave from out the back… not knowing my tail pad had been ripped off by a wave or something, and when I went to turn I slipped off and my board hit Jason Mathews in the head.. So as you can imagine it was hectec!! I ended up getting a good wave which put me in 2nd for most of the heat but towards the end the other two surfers caught good waves and knocked me back into 4th. So I placed 4th in the Open Mens Longboard division of the Maori Nationals, not my best result but was a fun comp.

After the contest I surfed one of my fav. waves up there and had my best surf of the year. Waves were perfect triple over head on the take off, then they walled up and barrelled. You could do like 10 cut backs or hits on each wave it was amazing! They are so spoilt in Tara’s ay!!

Check out photos in gallery

Hey,
Just got to Ohakune last night after an epic Snoop Dog, Ice Cube, Bone Thugs n Harmony concert in Wellington. The concert was amazing and the night was well worth the mission up from Wanaka.

The mountain was shut today but hoping it clears up for tomorrow.

-Holler, NZsnowboard.com

Hey,
A few quick turns up at Cardrona on their last powder day of the season.

LINK: http://www.nzsnowboard.com/articles/387/oct_24th_08__hollerblog_-_cardies_pow_and_pipe

- Holler, NZsnowboard.com

I am heading off to Taranaki this Friday night for the Maori nationals. Unsure where the comp will be held because they can take it anywhere on the coast which is huge, and they will take it wherever the best waves are.

Stoked its only a 4.5 hour drive this time, dont think I could handle driving up to whangarei after this hectec week!!

It looks like there could be good surf though so im amping. Hoping for a good first heat and that i’ll be able to charge my way through to the finals!!

Will update when I get back.

Hey,

Went up to Cardrona with Will Jackways, Bevan Hall and Johnny Young.

With the whole hill to ourselves and a snowmobile to help get us around. We filmed a video for the website which will be up soon. Sweet.

I’m off to the north island next week for some spring. STOKED!!

- Holler, NZsnowboard.com

Hi guys,

well just got in from a surf out-front of my house small 2 ft waves, but nobody out so it was great fun for me picking off any wave I wanted. Yay so happy I got to surf in Bikini the water is beautiful and warm now, Summer is here!! thought I had better give an update of what I have been up too the last few months. I am doing a remedial massage therapy course at present and it is so interesting learning so much about the body, which is even benefiting my surfing. I do this three days a week at the mo, so I still have plenty of time to surf and go hard with that.

My up and coming evens are the Trials for the trials of the Roxy Pro Novemeber 1st and a queensland surfing series event a few weeks after.

Take care everyone,

Ange

So I’m back in Whistler, Canada now where the rain has began falling and the snowboarding starts again next month. While I was in NZ this year, my girlfriend got into mountain biking. During summer here they open up several of the ski lifts for downhill mountain biking. You you take the lift up with your bike and just ride down through a pretty rad selection of trails. We spent a couple of days in the bike park last week before it closes for the winter season. Not quite as good as snowboarding but it’s still a pretty rad sport. Definitely worthy of a few MD’s.

There’s been a bit of snow starting to fall on the upper slopes so everyone around here is definitely buzzing for the season to start. I’ve also been checking out the Ruapehu webcams and it sill looks on so if you’re hanging around the north island, make sure you get amongst some of that deep base they’re rocking.

Nev

Here is my latest double page editorial in Curl magazine, grab the mag to check it out…