We are back in Queenstown now for a couple of weeks until Round 2 of the South Island Cup. The DH in Dunedin last weekend was a good race however I couldnt race due to my split open finger. It has taken about 2 weeks to heal properly but is sorted now and i am back riding DH. After Dunedin where the other scots had okay races but mechanicals for 3 out of the remaining 4 we moved onto wanaka. Spook put us up for 3 nights and we had a great time. I got out on the xc bike each day for training and then the rest of the time we played tennis, went swimming or fashing. The pear in wanaka is full of fish but not strictly for fishing. We went on undercover operations and pulled 3 out for dinner the first night. A couple of rainbows and a brownie cooked with lemon and butter on the barbie. The next night was a disaster and the big eals were more interested than the fish but would have been a bastard to land. Then the line got tangled, dan droped it in and I had to swim after it. We only got a small brown trout that night and Cathro managed to polish it off. The tenis was awsome and Ferg took our world series to 2 games each between us.
We got back to queenstown and I put in an epic day on the XC bike cycling on a 2 hour ride to 7mile trails and then cycled up the valley to coronet ski center where the DH runs from. Its all uphill for about another 2 hours. Liam and ferg spent the evening riding DH with the chairlift while I rode up and then we got some photos for Austrailien MTB magazine untill it was dark. They were for the Brake Burner enduro DH race at the weekend. We wernt racing but mat and Lynne who we are staying with were and a few locals we know were so we went up to watch. It looked fun and good knarly passing wherever possible. Lynnes team won and Mats got 4th. fello scot who lives here now Paul ‘Pangus’ Angus taking the solo win.
Next week is the ‘week of wonder’ where there is a different event every night finishing with the National DH on Coronet at the weekend and the invitational DH the day after on the Skyline track. It should be a packed week of riding so no braking the finger in gently.
