Good online retailers

$55US for a item of about that size sounds correct. I have had good experience with Sierra trading post but they mainly sell seconds or clearance items. Also used Cabelas a couple of times, they charge 20% of the items value for postage so can work out cheap at times. Although I doubt either would stock the bivy you are after.

Thanks for the tips. I've just stumbled on backcountry.com which seems to want to give me free shipping as far as I can tell. It doesn't state that it's supposed to be free internationally, but it keeps calculating $0 when I ask it to ship to NZ, and that's how the instructions say to calculate the international shipping costs. Has anyone had any experience with backcountry.com?

Actually scratch that last comment. The website wasn't updating itself properly and it really wants to charge me US$58 for shipping.

Even with the high price of postage my imports generally work out to be quite inexpensive... Landed half a dozen or so pairs of bridgedale socks for around $8nzd each and a Kayaking dry jacket for less then half the local price. Although I did most of my purchasing when the NZD was up around .80 USD. You also do not have to pay GST or duties if the amount owed is less then $50.00 , this helps to cover the cost of postage.

Outdoor research is accessed by Intertrek in Aust. Can't be positive they already import the particular model you want but you might try them at least. Stores that stock Intertrek products are in all capital cities eg. K2 Base Camp in Brisbane. ie. k2basecamp.com.au or 61 07 38541340

If K2 has what you want i might be able to swing a discount for you and as they are just down the road i could bring it over to the sth island in a week or so and mail it from Christchurch.

Here are ones I've used... http://www.altrec.com/ http://www.amazon.com/ http://www.backcountry.com/ http://www.backcountrygear.com/index.cfm http://www.backpackinglight.com http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/display_forum.html?forum=20 http://www.basegear.com/ http://www.campmor.com/outdoor/gear/Home_ http://www.ems.com/index.jsp http://mammothgear.com/ http://www.ministeam.com/acatalog/Esbit.html http://www.moosejaw.com/moosejaw/shop/home___ http://www.mountaingear.com/index.asp http://store.mpgear.com/ http://www.rei.com/ http://www.sierratradingpost.com/ -------------------- ...and some more that I haven't used yet... http://www.campsaver.com/ http://www.detourgearzone.com/ http://store.everestgear.com/index.html http://www.gearreview.com/shop/browse.php http://www.mec.ca http://www.moontrail.com/home.php http://www.mountainlaureldesigns.com/shop/index.php http://www.promountainsports.com/index.html https://www.prolitegear.com/index.html http://www.questoutfitters.com/ http://www.rockymountaintrail.com/default.aspx http://www.summithut.com/ http://thru-hiker.com/materials/index.php http://www.travelcountry.com/ http://www.winterfix.com/ http://www.zpacks.com/

I guess I should add that I'm in the USA, so I have no idea who will ship to NZ & whether the rates are acceptable. Fwiw, best experiences have probably been with (alphabetically) Altrec, Amazon, Backcountry, BPL, Basegear, Campmor, Moosejaw, REI & STP.

Kelly's on the East Coast of oz stock OR gear, including a bunch of Bivvies. http://www.kellysbasecamp.com.au/bc/31594/242691/1/bivvies.html I buy a fair bit from here, they have been good to date.