New Zealand Tour: Scooters are not too bad if they have motors in them!
A final blog post from Jackson on the New Zealand tour (we might get one more from Gabe),
Waiheke Island is about a 45 minute ferry ride from Auckland, and it is by far one of the most chilled places in New Zealand to hang out on.
After the N-Tense D-Centz tour in December 2010, Tony Graves, Wicked-Sauce and myself went over there to hang out with our Bus Driver Bohdie. We had such a great time there chilling on the beach and checking out the scenery that I decided it would be awesome to go visit again after this NZ tour.
After the Double Down outlaw, the crew jumped on the Ferry and cruised over to Waiheke to hang out with Bohdie and Dan from Beach Bum Bus tours and skate the hills the island has to offer.
We decided it would be a sick idea to hire out scooters for the day, strap our boards on the back and rip around the Island skating hills, however we ended up having so much fun on the scooters we only skated one hill and ended up racing each other around the island on our scooters.
The roads on the island arent the smoothest roads, however they are very steep and extremely windy. Riding some of these roads on skateboards can be pretty dangerous as there is a bit of traffic around, but we did manage to find a few gems that were sick to skate on.
After a little session on some of the local hills we put the skateboards away and Bohdie led us on a tour around the island checking out the beaches and the awesome scenery. The sun was out and the water was warm, it was just the perfect way to wind up the trip. The vibes you get on the island are rad, everyone is super chilled out and friendly, so being able to cruise around freely and stop everywhere to meet cool people and check everything out was epic. This is a destination to add to any NZ travel itinerary, and definitely cant wait to go back there.
Overall the NZ trip was so much fun. Getting a chance to hang out with some rad skaters and cruise around skating epic hills is what we live for, and being able to share that experience with good mate Gabe was even better. There is so much potential for downhill skateboarding in New Zealand, everyone in the country seems to understand skateboarding as they are all open to adventurous activities and just general extreme sports. There are plenty of mountain roads and awesome runs scattered everywhere around the country and we just cant wait to get back there and shred some more gnar.





