The Luge in Queenstown – Day 141, Part 2

We’re going to have some good, on the ground, close to the ground fun. We’re gonna be luging.

This morning our part one of our Day 141 the weather was snowy Robin failed miserably at bungy jumping and almost passed out and Laura bravely took over out of the 47m of The Ledge Bungy.

We are now picking back up right on top of the Gondola where we are ready for some fun this afternoon. After a dramatic morning we are looking for some more simple fun something that we can both enjoy that is well within our comfort zone. It is too fun to stress over and that is The Luge at the Skyline Gondola.

So we are picking up our Luge helmets, queuing up for our first luge ride and handing over our tickets, getting a little bit of a rundown on how to control these luge karts and off we go.

The Queenstown Luge has two tracks the beginners one and the advanced track. Because it’s our first ride we have to take the beginners one because we need to get used to how to control those really fast Luge. Needless to say, the cautious Laura is taking it pretty easy it really feels like this morning’s adrenaline rush is well over and done with she is driving like a granny for her first round because she claims she doesn’t know how to control the luge just yet.

The way you control your luge ride is completely up to you. it’s just you against gravity so you use the handlebars to control the luge kart whether it goes slower or faster and this round on the beginners track is the way for us to get used to how fast we feel comfortable going and as Robin said I’m going a little bit slow to start with but things start to pick up.

Around the midway of the second track we are passing through a tunnel and this seems to mark the point where Laura is getting competitive. She really wants to be winning for the whole day so she’s picking up some decent speed and trying to pass me over and over again despite my best effort to actually stay on top.

Straight away even from the beginners track we can already realise how much fun it is to do this luge. The motto of The Luge Skyline is once is never enough and honestly it’s really true I’m not even finished with our first ride and I already wanna go back up and actually kick Laura’s ass once more.

Once we have gained some confidence we start to get some serious speed and there’s quite a few sharp corners even on this first track where we realise that the Luge karts can actually turn quite sharply so we are undercutting each other and fighting it to the finish.

Although there is a lot of people at Skyline today, like literally there are massive queues up there, we don’t see that many people on the track and that’s because there’s over 800m worth of track so everybody’s really spread out. And it makes it for super fun because we have plenty of space to actually act like crazies.

the last tunnel of the beginners track marks the beginning of the end. Because the luge karts are powered by gravity only we need to do a lot of zigzag to slow down before we arrive close to the finish. So the track is doing a lot of zigzags forcing us to slow down tremendously so we don’t get to knock some kids running around when we arrive around the end.

As soon as we arrive at the end, we are giving the karts to the staff from Skyline which are gonna hook them at the bottom of the chairlift and we are gonna sitting on top of the said chairlift making our way back up.

The really awesome thing about doing doing the first round is that we’ve actually spotted out where all the cameras are cos at the end of your ride you can actually see all your photos throughout the Luge which is actually pretty hilarious for us we are pulling our own poses our own crazy faces and you will get to see our rendition of that at the end of this video during the credits.

A quick side-note before we move onto the advanced track. I really love the fact that Skyline Queenstown has a lot of games in the waiting area so while you’re queuing up you’re still having a lot of fun. But enough on sucking up on Queenstown Skyline, we are off to the races on the advanced track.

I’m taking the advanced track super seriously, already today I was one the that bungy jumped while Robin failed miserably, so I want to make this a double whammy I want to win at the Luge races all of them so I am making sure I am getting some serious speed to race Robin.

The advanced track is definitely a massive improvement on the beginners track. The slopes are steeper the corner are sharper and every 50 or so metres there is kind of a dip that is giving us much more speed. It is heaps of fun and making it for a huge competition between Laura and I. the advanced track has a much more crazy features there are some banked corners and the track itself is even narrower so there’s no room for error.

The clouds are starting to clear which means we can now see that famous scenery that you can see from the top of the Queenstown Gondola. We can see all the way to The Remarkables mountain range the massive Lake Wakatipu and we are surrounded by snow today which makes this whole place all the more magical.

Between the stunning views the epic racing and the fact that we want to make some really funny faces for the cameras this race is really a massive challenge for us. We have a lot to deal with right here.

Although some people decide to take a more leisurely ride and taking it really slow and enjoying the views and going at their own pace through the course, Laura and I are really deciding to go for an adventurous ride racing each other super fast.

This is definitely an awesome option to do in Queenstown if you’re travelling with other people or as a group. this is something that you can get really competitive with and have so much more fun if you are doing this luge with other people. Which is definitely what Robin and I are doing right now.

This race is definitely a nail biter. It’s up to finish right here. We are literally on the zigzag part of the track where we’re supposed to be slowing down but we are cheating as hard as we can to actually beat each other and Laura is making a pass for me literally where there was no place to pass. it’s absolutely insane but she really deserved that win. It really looks like today is Laura’s day.

that was such a tight finish I can’t believe I got him right at the last minute there. And now it’s time for us to hop back onto the chairlift because we only have three more turns left to do this really is a thing you want to do over and over again.

But while we are enjoying the beautiful scenery on the way back up on the chairlift Laura and I are gonna be racing without the camera this time. We have spent a lot of time on camera today it was a really tough one so we are going to be cutting straightaway to making our way back down to Queenstown.

But because today is Laura’s day she is getting treated to Robin being on Laundry duty even being treated to dinner. I’m taking Laura to Devil Burger.

If you don’t like queuing up for a Fergburger then try Devil Burger. It is just as big, just as scrumptious, we absolutely love it here so we are eating inside getting some free chips along with that since we got a little voucher along with Canyoning New Zealand which we did the other day, and sort of just reminiscing on such an insane day that we had today bungy jumping and luging on top of the Queenstown Gondola.

[singing] Er Laura? Yeah.