Two cars full of kiwi rippers and a dude from Estonia were all chomping at the bit to get on the road and see what New Zealand has on offer for the world of winching. A crew of us have spent the last couple of years scouting out locations around NZ, so we had a solid list of spots that we knew would be all time to ride. We also had a bunch of spots that we had heard about through the grapevine or seen pictures of on the internet. These were the spots that had us pretty pumped, not to mention all the spots that we would find along the way. There is a certain excitement that comes over you when you set off on a trip that has been over two years in the making, putting ideas into fruition, and that’s just epic.
Loaded up with camping gear, a couple of winches and a bunch of boards, we started making our way south, leaving the high rise buildings of Auckland in the distance. We met up with Sophie Schollum and Dan Thomas a couple of hours south of the city. We had a couple of spots lined up in the North Island to ride but the bulk of the good spots were going to be in the south. After a solid session on day one we set up camp on the Desert Road in the center of the North Island, which also happens to be the home of Mt. Ruapehu, which is a sometimes active volcano and ski field. Ekke Eller, who was our Estonian ripper on the trip had told us he had spent a heap of time riding in conditions well into the negatives, so we assumed he would be pretty used to the cold. It turns out he didn’t like the cold too much, waking up to a solid Desert Road frost and getting about two hours of sleep meant most of his night was spent just trying to avoid hypothermia. After a stop at the closest gas station to get ourselves a hearty breakfast of pies and coffee, we set off south on what would be our biggest day of travel for the whole trip, crossing the Cook Straight.
We stepped foot onto the South Island and made our way into the sticks to the small town of Culverden, which would be our base for the next few nights. Culverden was a spot I had scouted and knew it had some epic potential. After a day hanging off the end of chainsaws and hammers we had ourselves a super fun looking willow rail, over eight inches of water. After a few mouthfuls of stones the next morning and some heavy slams, we got the rail on lock and it turned into one of the best sessions I have had on the board in a long time. A little bit of creativity can go a long way.
The mission continued and we met up with Geraldine local and ripper Mark Holder, who had sussed out a couple of his own local spots. One of which was a water race feature that we had been scouting for a super long time. These races carry water for all the farm irrigators around the South Island and have drops along them of up to two meters. So when you find the perfect race it is pure gold. In true kiwi style we hooked the line onto the back of the Hilux and had an all-time session.
The next big stop for us was going to be the McKenzie Country which sits in the heart of the South Island. It is full of crazy blue lakes and amazing features everywhere. The place is epic. We had a number of spots that we had already sussed out, but because of the scoop this area has we found a bunch more. After a super fun tunnel session that evening, riding through a 170m long tunnel, which made its way under the canals, we set up camp at a local site.
For some reason camping hadn’t been going so well for us this trip and that night the heavens opened in a serious way, which meant Dan and Soph weren’t so stoked to wake up to a slightly higher lake level and a flooded tent. We found ourselves having a down day in the zone we had been looking forward to the most. Thankfully the people at the Twizel cafes were a friendly bunch and didn’t mind us parked up for a few hours, drinking coffee and sifting though the content we had collected so far on the trip. Once the heavens finally cleared we got to ride a couple of the spots we had been scouting for a while and it was super rad to finally hit them.
The following day we met up with Mark again who had made the mission down to Twizel to show us a couple of spots he knew of. One of which was a super rad concrete dam, perched at the bottom of Lake Ohau. It isn’t often you want the wind to be blowing when you are wakeboarding, but in this spot a good breeze meant it rolled the perfect amount of water onto the dam wall and set it up for a rad jib session. The second spot that day was a wharf that Mark and his buddy had scouted and it had some amazing line options. Three hits in and we got shut down by the local coastguard for reasons I still haven’t made sense of.
With the McKenzie Country a wrap and the stoke levels high we made our way to the final destination of Queenstown, one of the most scenic towns in the country. Queenstown had been our local for the past couple of years and we already had a decent list of spots to ride; spots that I believe are some of the most scenic in the country, if not the world, and that is pretty special in itself. After a super fun final day and a double winch on the shores of Lake Wakatipu the stoke levels were at an all-time high. With even more locations scouted for the next trip we can’t wait to get on the road again next summer.
