Racing the Luge at Queenstown

Queenstown was not what I was expecting, in my mind I had envisaged a big city but it was infact a small town. A great small town, perhaps its size is something that makes it so good.

View of Queenstown from the Skyline Gondola

There is so much to do here too. We were there in mid September and the ski season was still going. Combined with there were lots of mountain bikers around and Queenstown is also the site of the first bungee jump in the world. We declined on the bungee instead we took the Skyline Gondola and did the Luge. 

Luge Track at Queenstown

The luge is a 3 wheeled cart that you race down the hill on a cart designed specifically for it. It looks a bit tame and family oriented in their advertisements but its actually a lot of fun and you can go quite fast.

Luge Karts at Queenstown

Once you get to the bottom you take a ski lift back to the top and start again. They have intermediate and advanced tracks so you have plenty of opportunities for racing. We met an English guy in the queue who was traveling alone and the 3 of us ended up racing for the afternoon in the slippery wet conditions.

Race Day at the Luge!

Quad Biking on the South Island

After the Irish game we made our way south to Wellington and took the ferry to the South Island. Everyone had told us that we'd have difficulty getting the ferry because everything would be booked out because of the Rugby World Cup but this turned out not to be the case. This was the same with renting the camper van, I think they overestimated the amount of people that would be visiting or else everyone assumed everything would be booked out so no one actually tried to book anything. We spent some time around Nelson, a sunny spot in the north of the South Island.

Sunny Nelson!

We headed south then to the Franz Josef glazier. Here we planned to do another helicopter ride this time with a snow landing on the glacier. Unfortunately it was very cloudy which meant it wasn't worth doing it as visibility was extremely poor. Instead we did a quad bike tour. Things were a little more strict here compared to Quad Biking in Bolivia, if you turned the bike over or crashed into the instructor you would receive a fine. The terrain varied greatly and was considerably more difficult than that in Bolivia. The result was you didn't have time for messing around or racing.

Quad Biking in New Zealand

The trip really showed what quad bikes are capable of, some of the water crossings were quite deep and some of the kills steep but the bikes had no problems especially when you put them into 4-wheel drive. The highlight of the trip for me was the river crossing. The photo doesn't really do it justice but the current was very strong, so much so that you could feel it pushing against the bike.

River Crossing on a Quad Bike

Finally to finish the day we had to clean the bikes and the overalls. They had a quick way of doing this!

Free Shower Included