Snowboarder, 78, still cutting shapes

Otago Daily Times

30-07-2025

You won't find many snowboarders on Queenstown's ski slopes who took up the sport in the 1980s.
An exception is 78-year-old local retiree Graeme Burgess, who threw away his skis after seeing a snowboarder on Cardrona in about 1989.
Raised in Tokanui, Southland, Graeme used to come up to ski, mostly on Queenstown's Coronet Peak, every winter weekend when he was living in Invercargill, especially from his late 20s after he and wife Zeta had had a family.
He'd already shown good balance, building and teaching himself to ride low and tall unicycles from a young age.
As a youngster he also waterskied, starting on two skis then progressing to one, and entered competitions for many years, performing tricks and jumps.
Then from 20 he also raced speedway motorcycles, buying one of international racer Ivan Mauger's bikes from the latter's brother.
He perfected racing sideways at 100kmh and even raced against Southland motorcycle racing great Burt Munro.
"He was too good, but half the time he was stopped because his bikes were blowing up."
Graeme thinks his single-ski waterskiing and speedway racing meant he took to snowboarding — in the sport's comparative infancy — like a duck to water, with no need for lessons.
He immediately hired a snowboard at Cardrona, then bought his first — a Burton Big Air with wire bindings to fit ski boots — from Queenstown's NZ Shred.
He's now on to his sixth board, an Elan Ballistic, which he imports from Slovenia along with bindings and boots.
"I use alpine carving race boards with special hard boots, similar to ski boots but much shorter.
"This aspect of boarding isn't so popular here but is still an Olympic sport in the dual slalom."
Till they stopped, Graeme competed every year in the New Zealand Snowboard Masters in slalom and boardercross events, often winning on handicap against much younger riders.
He'd also compete in Coronet's regular Sunday races, though he might be the only boarder.
He's ridden, too, in Europe, Canada and the United States where he's raced with his good friend Dick Schulze, from Truckee, California.
Nowadays he picks and chooses when he goes up, and only went six or eight times last year.
"I'm on the first chairlift, away from the crowds, because I love to go quite fast, so I don't mess around bumps and jumps and all that."
Though skiers sometimes complain about snowboarders' behaviour, Graeme — who's aiming to ride till he's 80, in two seasons' time — says he's never knocked a skier off, "but I've been run over the top by a ski instructor".
Meanwhile, Graeme's not idle in summer, either.
He's regularly off boating and fishing, and he and Zeta base themselves at their Stewart Island home over the holiday season.
He dredges for oysters and used to scuba dive, too.
Graeme formerly owned an engineering business in Invercargill for 26 years, selling up when he was 56 and retiring to Queenstown.
Astutely, he'd invested in three homes on the lower flanks of Queenstown, renting them out before selling them mortgage-free.
He and Zeta lived in one for a year before moving into a new home overlooking the Shotover River 18 years ago.
Graeme's been active in the Lions Club, first down south then with the Queenstown club, and helps its fundraising by chopping wood and looking after its coin-operated binoculars on the town pier.
He enjoys the company of several groups including one that meets at Arrowtown's Fork & Tap every Thursday.
He also runs a spud-in-a-bucket comp each year — competitors, limited to nine at a time, wear PGA-embroidered jackets, which stands for 'potato growers association'.
Harking back to his engineering days, Graeme loves tinkering — "I love fixing things and if something's broken I'll get to the bottom of it".
Though he stopped speedway racing at the age of 60, he now rides a 1300cc motorcycle which he often takes on trips with mates.
"We ride very fast all around the place," he says, before quickly adding, "we're not very high speed".