I will be traveling to the north island of NZ and the east coast of Australia in early December of this year (2004). My wife has a brother in Canberra and we haven’t seen him for 10 years, so we are headed down south.
We are looking to hire (or buy) a couple of surfboards (1 longboard [mal], and 1 funboard [mini-mal, or hybrid]) while on our trip. I don’t want to pay the extra to ship ours, and also don’t want to be doing repairs on our vacation if they get damaged in transport.
We will be in NZ Auckland area December 2-6, and flying to Syndey on the 7th. We will be renting a campervan and traveling to Canberra to visit our brother, then drive up the coast and hopefully make it as far as Noosa.
I’d love to stop in and visit any shapers or board collectors, and would love to have a surf with anybody ready for a go out.
If you have any suggestions on where to acquire a board, OR if you have a board(s) that you would be willing to hire (or sell) to us, please let me know. Also, if you’re up for a surf or would be willing to open your shaping bay or collection for viewing, we’d love to visit!
Come to Manly, and go to a shop called dripping wet, you can hire any board for a week and only pay $170-$200 Aussie Dollars, They will also give you a good deel on prices for a board, both new and secondhand, as for a surf, just surf somewhere on Manly beach, Normally Hutchinsons Building, neer dripping wet and Ill be out surfing!
by the time you get here on the gold coast i should have my shop/studio open, i have a reasonably self centred collection of experiments from the last few years you can check out. most are centred around modern shortboards! i dont think youll be up to buying boards at the end of you trip but do stop by and enjoy what i have to offer in sights,
I’m thinking about heading to New Zealand myself. I was thinking about taking more then one longboard from one of the better known shapers here in CA with me and maybe selling them both before I left. Is there any market there in New Zealand for longboards from CA. I hear that in Japan you can made a few bucks that way.
Billy if this year is like last year you won’t need a surfboard in Australia 'cos there won’t be any waves! December is regularly the worst month of the year on the east coast!
Plenty of longboard shapers here. I’m sure you could sell your boards if you didn’t want to haul them home, but I wouldn’t count on much of a profit. Good waves though and generally pretty mellow crowds.
Im form New Zealand and i dont think it is likely you will make money because boards here are relatively cheap-thats what i hear anyway. Although there may be someone who is interested in your boards, stick arouind teh upper half of the north island where all the surf hype is, gisbourne, taranaki, raglan , auckland. Enjoy the waves.
Jong, and Tomd, thinks for the advice. If I do get a change to head over that way I will only take one board. I was just hoping that a new Lance Carson, Velzy, or a Harbour with be worth a few extra bucks, and would off set the cost of my trip. You know every little bit helps when your a poor surfer, tring to make ends meet.