The Queenstown Winter Festival started with a bang on Friday night and continued to hiss and roar through the weekend as thousands of revellers soaked up the alpine atmosphere at yesterday's Day on the Bay waterfront events.
Forget about the circus - Queenstown took the biscuit for extreme entertainment as high jinks, high adrenaline and hilarity swept the resort in a series of wild and wacky sports as part of the 38th annual festival.
Thousands packed Marine Pde for a glimpse of the Birdman competition, which included a cardboard army tank from A-Team shooting over the enemy, Aladdin and his Genie on a magic carpet, and an Angel falling from grace into the deep.
But the anonymous men known collectively as Bounce, dressed in orange suits and armed with moonhoppers, won first prize for the best Birdman entry.
Then the action moved to the beach, where five jet-boats took part in the daredevil jet sprints. The fastest boat through the challenging slalom course was reigning champion Skippers Canyon Jet. Second place went to Kawarau Jet with Shotover Jet in third place.
The next race was powered by arms and legs as the paddle board race took to the water. Winners were Triple S with local hard men Mike Stewart, Andrew Salek and Bas Smith from the Alpine Board Riders Club.
A bunch of fearless guys and one girl donned swimwear for the splash and dash, which required a 50m swim in the freezing waters of Lake Wakatipu, followed by a dash down the beach. The winner was Mark Wilson, of Queenstown. Emily Cant, of Christchurch, picked up a prize as the only female in the event.
The final event of the day was the Hundy 500, where competitors in male and female divisions completed a tricky obstacle course in and out of the water. Swedish visitor Charlotta Svenungsson won the women's event, with Thijs Hubber, of Christchurch, streaking ahead of the competition to claim the cash in the men's.
Festival director Simon Green said hundreds of good sports had embraced their wild side to put on some priceless entertainment for festival-goers' enjoyment.
"The Day on the Bay is always a real crowd-pleaser and the participation of contestants makes it so much fun," he said.
On Saturday, thousands of festival-goers lined the streets of Queenstown's CBD to cheer on the streams of multi-coloured traffic in the festival's showcase street parade.
A record 40 community and corporate floats took part, delighting the crowds with superheroes, storm troopers, gymnasts, a steam engine, truckloads of children and New Zealand snow sports stars including Olympians Mitchey Greig and Tim Cafe.
The best float award was won by Queenstown Primary School which featured the school band singing together on a winter wonderland-themed float.
Highly commended were Queenstown Preschool and Queenstown Top 10 Holiday Park Creeksyde for great use of recyclable materials and promotion of waste awareness.
Hundreds of children packed Earnslaw Park with their favourite cuddly toys following the parade, to watch a magic show with Ronald McDonald at the Teddy Bears Picnic.
Summer Wedderburn (6), from Lakes Hayes, won the prize for bringing the most teddies (six).
Elsewhere, excitement got under way in Queenstown Gardens for the Frisbee Golf Doubles Winter Wind Up tournament and quirky bargains were snapped up at the Creative Queenstown Arts and Crafts Market.
As night fell, festival-goers donned masks for the burlesque-themed Masquerade Ball at the Ice Box, while over at Queenstown Ice Arena the Southern Stampede were beaten 7-4 by the Dunedin Thunder in the first in a series of ice hockey clashes.
