This past weekend was the opening of the Queenstown Bike Park – the only lift access bike park in New Zealand! I flew out of Auckland at 7:00am meaning that I had to be up at 5:30am. Yikes eh! Ah well, it was worth it! On Saturday night Ireland beat Australia at the RWC, which was a huge upset. So at 5:30am there was still a lot of drunk Irish kicking around the city, which was amusing when waiting for the bus. I caught my bus and off to the airport I went. 2 hours later I was in Queenstown.
I caught another bus into Queenstown from the airport and then it was off to drop my gear at Nomads Queenstown. I had planned to drop my bags and then hit up the skyline to start rocking some downhill tracks, but it didn’t work out that way. When I went to purchase my ticket at the skyline I found out that wouldn’t be opening until 1pm. I guess on Saturday it rained during the day and the riders ripped up the tracks pretty bad. The tracks had to dry out and the maintenance crew had some work to do, so it was a waiting game.
So what do you do with time to kill in Queenstown? I headed to the local bookshop and read magazines, had a coffee at Bob’s Weigh; Queenstown’s best breakie spot and checked out some really expensive real-estate that I could never afford.
Soon enough it was 1pm and up the skyline I went keen for that first ride. Oh I was not disappointed. The tracks were mint! Dark brown earth, sticky… oh brown pow how I love you! Not all of the tracks were open, but still enough to keep me grinning from ear to ear. It was a great day of riding and I managed to get 12 runs in. At the end of the day I was beat. My legs, arms and shoulders were sore as… but so worth it! I can’t wait to get back down south in October. I plan to make a week of it.
