As I write this weeks edition, it is raining outside, the first significant rainfall for almost 3 weeks, and it's a blessing. The hard sunshine that graces the Central Otago region has made itself at home this summer, parching lawns and sports grounds harder than normal. Inside this edition, I'll detail why Queenstown is just like any other town when scenery and adventure activities are removed from the mix. This includes development delays and budget blowouts, parking skills that defy belief, improper use of sprinklers, and Queenstown's newest storage centre. This can only mean a photo laden issue. And we'll see if there was a winner in last week's Barup cocktail competition, and detail our newest prize giveaway!

We've been running the Barup Cocktail competition for the last 10 weeks. This week's question is the final question and seeing as the last 3 went un-awarded, this week is a quadruple jackpot. The vouchers are worth $16 each, so that's a combined value of $64 to spend on cocktails. Only registered users are eligible, excluding family and friends of Queenstown.com. You have until Sunday night to enter and the winner will be announced in next week's edition of this editorial.

I'm rather passionate about a few things, and one of those in particular is the long awaited and drawn out skatepark ordeal. The above photo is the most recent one we have of the current Queenstown skatepark. Luckily, construction of the ill-fated park is set to finally begin today, three years after 4000 local skaters signed a petition for a new skatepark. Although it may not get finished because the Council severely bumbled the design process causing the costs to increase by $80,000, which is more than 25%. Wakatipu Skate Club president Craig Strong and all the local skaters have the right to feel cheated after having already coming up with $100,000, one third of the initial cost.

Neighbouring the skatepark in question is another debacle in the making. Members of the New Zealand Ice Hockey team that reside in Queenstown have been forced off the ice because the space has been rented the film crew that are here filming the Wolverine movie. We have WOZ Productions and the management of the Queenstown Fun Centre to thank for pushing 9 members of the team of the ice in the lead up to the world championships in Australia in April. The ice rink will be used as storage space right through until March.

Continuing on the current theme, the above photo is a fantastic display of the some the parking skills in the area. The locals among you will recognise that this is in fact the left turning lane on the way to the fresh choice carpark. It even has complimentary dashed yellow lines and a big left shaped arrow, that not only indicates that you can't park there as it's part of the road. It's quite the popular parking spot. During our recent photo gallery downtime, I snapped many a photo many a local parking there. These can be found in the Good Parking D1CK gallery. I'll give a $50 Tardis bartab to anone who snaps a photo that is worthy of entering this gallery.

To start and end on a positive note, one of Queenstown's biggest achievements of 2007 had to have been the initiation of kerbside recycling. This is by far the best thing that happened to Queenstown last year, and this year we hope to see an addition to this service. A few months ago, Councillor Cath mentioned that Queenstown may get green waste recycling this year, handy for those without compost bins, making a more eco-friendly solution. Let's hope these kinds on plans come into fruition in 2008.

Until next week, be careful in the sun,

Nathan - Queenstown.com Editor.