In this edition our very own Phoebe Swan does a little road-tripping around the North Island and Jase John from Queenstown in the South Island gives us a rundown on his latest trip to Japan chasing Japow. You will see Jase scored big. To kick things off with our Across the Ditch section, we thought we would share a little magic from Raglan and why New Zealand is aptly named The Land of the Long Lefts.
Random tales from the road
Words: Phoebe Swan
This was my first time to the North Island, having visited the South Island with my family back in 2014 when I was twelve. Back then I wasn’t as passionate surfer as I am now. When dad (Dave Swan) took to the Dunedin breaks in the middle of winter with the outside temps around 1 degrees and the water about 8-9 degrees, I wasn’t having any of it, but things have changed. I absolutely love my surfing now. When the opportunity finally came to visit my best friend Sophia (a Kiwi) who returned home to attend uni, and who I hadn’t seen since the start of Covid, I was very keen. I was confident I would get the chance to surf during my stay, in fact I was going to make certain of it.
Dad always raves about New Zealand, about how different the North Island is to the South Island and of course, how good the surf is, and how down-to-earth all the surfboard shapers are. I found myself eager to follow in his footsteps and amazingly I think I pretty much did. Here’s a little rundown on my recent trip.
MUST DO NO 1
I was told I must visit Roger Hall at Surfline Custom Surfboards. I don’t know how many times dad told me how incredible his boards are. “True works of art”, he said and how the day he rode Hot Curls with Roger and then drank beers until the early hours of the morning at McLeods’s Pizza Barn & Brewery in Ruakaka was, “one of the best days of my life”.
Well, unfortunately Roger wasn’t there when I visited, he was off on holidays testing his boards, but I did manage to catch up with Reece who does all the artwork on the boards, a talented artist himself. Reece was just incredible, so accommodating and happy to walk me through the workshop. And I can conclude, dad was right, Roger’s boards are amazing and his latest iteration of the Hot Curl out-of-this-world. Hopefully next time I get a chance to test one.
MUST DO NO 2
Surf the Mount, Mount Manganui that is. Thanks to Sophia’s housemate Fran and good friend Jai I got the opportunity to surf this place and I just have to say how special it is. The water was so crystal clear and we managed to get in some fun, mellow waves.
UNPLANNED QUICK TRIP
Thanks to the wonderful Fran, who’s driven me everywhere with Sophia tied down with uni, we made a quick dash down to Pokohino Beach on the Coromandel Peninsula, not far from Whangamata. It is quite possibly the most beautiful beach I have ever been to.
MUST DO 3
Raglan, the epicentre of New Zealand’s famed long lefts as seen in movies like The Endless Summer. This is the ‘holy land’ and I so wanted to dip my toe in the waters here. My first stop was Mickey T’s (Mike Thomson) Raglan Longboards to grab a board for the next few days.
Dad rang ahead and spoke with Mickey’s wife Sunny. A little while later I was greeted by both of them with the offer of a longboard and no acceptance of payment. “You’re family” was all Mickey replied. When I Facetimed dad later that day I think it brought a tear to his eye – the old softy he has become. “I haven’t seen them in 10 years and yet that is how they welcome you. I am so lucky to have met so many people like that during our days with Smorgasboarder. I love them” was all he could say again and again.
New Zealand is like that. Time and time again you are taken aback by how friendly and welcoming they all are. I have been told so many times by my parents that is how Australia used to be. When and why did we lose this side of us?
WHERE NEXT?
There were many other must dos on my list from dad but alas I couldn’t ‘do everything’. Hopefully I will be asked to return to visit the other corners of the North Island I have heard so much about like Gisborne, Taranaki, Wellington and of course Northland. I will be back.
JAPOW
words: jase john
With the stories of vehicles, then houses, then people washing away with the unprecedented rainfall across northern Aotearoa, the delays in departure and the fact we had been waiting over two years to rekindle our relationship with yuki in Nippon, soon paled into insignificance. The only positive from this natural disaster, was the anticipation of what impact these La Nina weather patterns might have on our quest for that bottomless Japan powder – if, or when, we did get there.
With the initial delays to our 2023 NZSHRED Japow Tour being constantly brought into perspective as the internet delivered us image after shocking image of this destruction, our 787 finally winged its way across the Pacific and closer to Narita airport. Our attention soon swung to the formalities of entering
With the stories of vehicles, then houses, then people washing away with the unprecedented rainfall across northern Aotearoa, the delays in departure and the fact we had been waiting over two years to rekindle our relationship with yuki in Nippon, soon paled into insignificance. The only positive from this natural disaster, was the anticipation of what impact these La Nina weather patterns might have on our quest for that bottomless Japan powder – if, or when, we did get there.
With the initial delays to our 2023 NZSHRED Japow Tour being constantly brought into perspective as the internet delivered us image after shocking image of this destruction, our 787 finally winged its way across the Pacific and closer to Narita airport. Our attention soon swung to the formalities of entering one of the post-Covid world’s most restrictive and regimented countries. What started as days of delays and destruction, was now morphing into a seamless pathway of harmonious timing and faultless luck. As we pressed towards the mountains, even the charming taxi driver, who met us at 11pm at the railway station amid the ensuing blizzard, showed that unwavering smile and feverish offering of assistance that only the Japanese can emulate.
We dropped our bags full of Jones, Nitro and Season demo boards, Oakley goggles, helmets and riding packs at our ryokan, and headed straight to a quintessential smoky late-night ‘locals venue’, to meet the rest of the crew. As a bar by most standards, with that typical Japanese chic, you retrieve your tipple-of-choice, then pay at the bar for it to be opened, which is an absolute stella business regime, especially considering the size of the venue made any chance for the provision of service to their clientele about as easy to achieve as Aabhi fitting his huge 6’4” frame and 167cm Nitro Magnum within their four person gondolas. Inside the bar, Nick (US) and Grant (Scotland) were holding court and telling yarns of the last three days of riding we’d missed. Then there, in the corner, was Steve (U.K.), our quintessential Pom, and token ‘straight stander’ never sure ‘where he was’ or ‘where he was headed’ and always expecting someone had it organised, but into everything just the same.
The quaintness of this first snow village, was not lost on the newer members of our group. Nor, what it must take to carve a life in this environment with the thin, narrow streets, steep gradients and the constant trickle of Onsen water lapping at your snowboard boots. And, what about the yuki? How about that yuki! The next three days were filled with that constant English retort from seasoned NZSHRED snow tripper, Robbie, “Just extra-ordinary!!!”. Danny (Dunedin) was soon remembering why he’d frequented Japan some 10 years earlier, and equally asking himself, why he’d taken this long to return.
The terrain variety of this upper mountain proved a brilliant playing field for the talent and experience across the group. Lines allowing individuals their necessary measure of trees (or not), dictated by experience or lactic acid build-up, were plentiful. However, by day four the itch of frequenting a different apres environment was requiring more than just a passing scratch. With a quarry of Asahi Dry and rice triangles, we negotiated the well-manicured highways and byways to land us in our next village. It was a destination of greater size, however still had streets numbering no more than fingers on our hands.
We were again blessed with four ‘local’ resorts and another three within the region with the furthest being a mere 45 minute drive, even on a solid snow day.
With group numbers swelling by the day, the Melbourne boys Hugh and Imran hit the ground running. Shortly after, Ange (Christchurch) and late trip member Rahul (Sydney) saw 2023 NZSHRED Japow Tour reach 11 crew. Despite the idiosyncrasies of a manageable dining experience fast becoming more of a ‘fend for yourself’ objective, the snow fall and quality did not waiver and there was just metres of it. As the days passed, we ticked off ski field after ski field. Our 18 days of riding saw us gather a quarry of 9 different ski areas in three separate snow regions of Honshu and just one lone day of no snowfall within that.
With snow conditions favourable on a daily basis, there was abundant opportunity to move the Oakley Flight Deck, Flight Tracker and Fall Line goggles around the group, as well as to try their new lens variations of Prizm Sage Gold, Prizm Rose Gold and Prizm Snow Garnet. With NZSHRED having pre-trip catered for a number of the group members snowboard requirements, a quarry of additional powder planks were generously passed among the team. Of specific mention, were the revamped camber 2024 Jones Mind Expander (156cm), the historically ever-reliable 2024 Nitro Squash (159cm) and the well-received 2024 Season Nexus (155cm). A further highlight of the demo gear was a set of the new, revolutionary Nidecker Supermatic quick-entry bindings.
With no end to the yuki falling, our riding days were fast coming to an end as we arrived at our third and final mountain village. Differing from the other venues, by way of it being a purpose-built snow destination, we experienced our largest daily snowfall of the trip some 50 plus centimetres over the course of our riding day. After almost three weeks on our boards, and attention now turning to some lazy days touristing in the effervescent metropolis of Tokyo, we bulleted south by way of one of Japan’s most famous engineering achievements, the shinkansen.
Stomachs filled of outstanding cuisine, broad smiles from rekindled snow interactions and bodies sufficiently tired and worn out, each group member returned home, satisfied with the playtime and fuelling a desire to look towards that next yuki chapter – So, to the 2024 NZSHRED Japow Tour.