Just had 2 awesome weeks in NZ and thought I'd do a short review for guys wanting to go and not sure where to go etc.

Queenstown is a great party town, top bars and restaurants etc There are 2 ski areas about 30 mins and 45 mins drive (Coronet Peak and Remarkables). CP was good, shortish runs, plenty of snow though and some good off-piste stuff. They had a few jumps and a half pipe. The lifts were a bit slow and they don't have an automatic ticket system, but no queues. Remarkables is a great drive, bit hairy as you have 300m drops with no barriers. They have a great terrain park, rails, jumps etc and some interesting off-piste. A few off us spent some time hiking to the mountain top and getting some nice fresh powder. The runs at Remarks are very short however and you spend most of your time in queues or on lifts. Again like most NZ resorts, old style ticket system and slow lifts. Definitely worth a visit but only for a day and only if snow is good.

My second week was up at Wanaka which is much quieter than Queenstown, which was cool with me. Treble cone and Cardrona are the 2 closest about 30mins drive. Snow park is also nearby but it just a terrain park (I didn't go). Cardrona was better than both Remarks & CP. Longer runs with more variety, more back country, they had a new quicker lift and the terrain park is awesome. Some huge jumps, world class half pipe, beginners half pipe etc. Treble Cone was easily the best out of all the ski areas I went to. This was helped by 20cm of snow that was dumped one night. But the runs there are long, 4.5km the longest. Lots of off-piste, some great chutes, big variety in the runs, a few cliff jump opportunities and plenty of spots where you can do a bit of hiking to access some fresh powder. There are only 2 lifts and both are pretty slow, but cos of long runs it's a moot point. You need the rest! They had a small terrain park, a few jumps and a couple of rails.

All resorts have unsealed roads and when I was there, there was lots of snow so all 2WDS had to put on snow chains - hassle especially if it's -8 and snowing. We rented a Legacy wagon, which was horribly underpowered and had an awful auto gearbox, but the AWD was great. Rarely lost traction. Would love to drive a turbo/manual one. So if you do go to NZ, worth the extra $$ to get an AWD/4WD.


I also did a day heli-boarding which was great. $700 (NZ) for 6 runs to the top of a mountain to the valley below through fresh untracked powder. Well worth the $$

I would say overall NZ wouldn't really be up there with Europe or North America. They really need an injection of cash to improve the lifts and facilities. If they had some $$ they could vastly increase the areas you could ski, there's heap of potenial there. Treble Cone could very easily be European standard with a few buck spent.