Mountainboarding: Get your adrenalin rush here

By JO-MARIE BROWN

Those game enough to try a new extreme sport playground in Taupo need to remember one thing when hurtling along on a mountainboard - speed, apparently, is your friend.

An estimated 1500 people enjoy the sport of mountainboarding in New Zealand, and to keep them happy, Kim Henderson has opened Gravity Hill, Australasia's first park dedicated to a sport dreamed up by American snowboarders 10 years ago.

"They started building boards they could use during the summer-time to keep up their fitness and skill level," Mr Henderson says.

"Of course, the great thing about mountainboarding is that while snow melts, dirt doesn't."

The sport that has since emerged is regarded as a cross between snowboarding, skateboarding, surfing and BMX bikes.

"Overseas it's growing dramatically, so I felt we needed a board park here to create a nucleus and a mountainboarding culture," Mr Henderson says.

The boards used are bigger than skateboards but smaller than snowboards and come complete with tricycle-like wheels and foot bindings.

Mr Henderson became involved in the sport around three years ago when checking out land-based options for kite surfing.

Since then he has been making mountainboards in New Zealand and has transformed a 4ha piece of serene Taupo farmland.

The attraction is adding to Taupo's reputation as the "adrenalin capital of New Zealand" - a tag often given to Queenstown.

A gentle grassy slope for beginners sits beside a maze of dirt tracks where boarders can reach speeds of 40km / h and leap over daunting big air "kickers". Boarder cross and dual slalom tracks also feature along with a 90m grass half-pipe carved into the hillside overlooking Lake Taupo.

"As far as I know this is the only fully designated mountainboard terrain park outside of the UK and Japan," Mr Henderson says.

In other countries such as the United States, skifields were used during summer months as a place for mountainboarders to let rip.

Mr Henderson hopes to attract around 400 riders to Gravity Hill at weekends and says the activity will appeal to anyone who enjoys other board sports.

"You control your speed by traversing the hill just like snowboarding. The idea is that the steeper the hill, the more you carve across it.

"If it's a gentle slope you can virtually go straight down," he says.

"Sure you'll get guys on the tracks who will bail out pretty hard but that's why it's essential to wear your safety pads and helmet."

While high speed and big air is the aim, riders who are not so sure can hire boards with brakes attached.

"They're popular in Wellington because they've got some wicked hills and they're quite narrow so it's hard to control your speed down there," Mr Henderson says.

With the sport's popularity expected to grow, Gravity Hill is already planning to host New Zealand's inaugural mountainboarding championship in October.

Mr Henderson also hopes to build two more parks in New Zealand before taking his concept to Australia and Europe.

"The thing is the speed. It's a real rush. Our saying with mountainboarding is speed is your friend. Surf the earth."