Queenstown Beachfront and Gardens, Marine Parade, Queenstown 9300
Type of Course – Two laps
Shoes Required – Road
Things to know
Toilets 20m from the start and water fountains on the course. There is both free and paid car parking in and around the town centre.
Starts at 9am in winter (New Zealand Standard Time)
Forgotten your barcode? Ask your hotel to print for you, or head to Warehouse Stationery in Frankton.
Nearest showers at Alpine Aqualand.
Very low risk of cancellation (cancelled annually for Queenstown Marathon in November)
Cafe: Yonder Café, 14 Church St (discounts for parkrunners)
Location of start:
The event starts at the Queenstown beachfront, Marine Parade.
Getting there by public transport
Queenstown ORBUS Blue Peaks bus stop is closest. Start line is approximately 500m from bus stop. Check website for timetable information
Getting there on foot
From town, walk to Queenstown beachfront near the corner of Earl Street and Marine Parade. The event start/finish is on the beachfront footpath leading into Queenstown Gardens near the public toilets.
Getting there by road
From Queenstown airport, take Frankton Rd-6A towards Queenstown town centre. Continue on Frankton Rd into Queenstown Gardens. Alternatively, continue on 6A into Queenstown town centre and take a left on Ballarat St. Take a left on Camp St and follow around until Marine Pde.
Parking can be found for free in and around Queenstown. Paid parking can be found in Queenstown town centre.
Closest to the parkrun start are paid car parks lots, which are on Church St and Ballarat St. Parking is suitable for motorhomes.
Stats
First run: June 9, 2018
Inaugural attendance: 93
Record attendance: 172 (23/11/2019)
Course records
Women: Caitlin Adams 17:41 (06/10/2018)
Men: Paul Martelletti 15:32 (04/01/2020)
The Story Behind Queenstown parkrun…
Chris Seymour, event director
I started running parkrun in Sydney. Before moving to New Zealand, I lived in Australia for eight years.
I’d gotten into distance running and one of my colleagues was a triathlete. He said I should check out parkrun and told me how to find my closest event.
After looking it up and thinking it was pretty cool, I joined in at St Peters parkrun in 2016 which was the first in Sydney. I loved it.
Two years later my wife and I decided to move to Queenstown full time for a lifestyle change – we had some land and had built a holiday house.
We started looking up the closest parkruns and there was none. I heard that Wanaka was going to start one and that town was smaller than Queenstown and still 100km away.
I thought to myself “how could Queenstown be the tourism capital of the South Island and not have a parkrun?”
One reason I wanted to get to a parkrun was I didn’t know anyone and thought the running community was where I would meet like-minded people.
I reached out to Noel and Lian from parkrun NZ through the normal channels and they told me they were coming to Wanaka and I should meet up with them.
Chatting with a couple of runners in a local run group, I asked about parkrun interest and they said it would be cool to have in town.
I ended up mapping out a course myself with a couple of different options.
After Wanaka’s inaugural event before Noel and Lian were going to depart from Queenstown I offered to take them on the course. My wife and Lian had coffee at a potential parkrun café while I took Noel around Queenstown Gardens.
He said he thought it would be the most beautiful course in all of New Zealand.
“I think you will get most parkrun tourists of any parkrun in New Zealand,” he said. Every week about 40-50% of our runners are from somewhere else.
The interesting thing with Queesntown is it’s a transient population. People come in and work seasons. They’ll work a ski season or be a summer rafting guide.
We have a core group of locals but then there are people who are quasi-local. They live here for a season and come to work but eventually they move on.
It’s interesting because Queenstown has a big trail running community. A lot of our core volunteers are ultra-marathon and mountain runner types. They’ll volunteer and then as soon as we’re done, they’re putting on their vests and getting out their poles and heading on a mountain or trail run mission.
We also have a lot of talented kids at the local high school. The track coach is involved as a volunteer and brings his up and coming runners to test at our event.
We’re also a Q, which is a hard one to get for the parkrun Alphabeteers.
We have views of the Remarkables Mountains and they’re pretty and unrivalled. I’m not biased in any way but it’s a beautiful view, especially in winter if you have a clear day, with the snow-capped mountains across the lake.
Our event is run through the botanical gardens then through a pine forest, so you pop out and go from super sunny to completely shaded. When you leave the forest, you get the view of the Remarkables and Lake Wakatipu.
Every tourist goes OMG when they see the mountains, it’s almost like you have to remember to turn.
You don’t want to get too stunned by the view and end up in the lake!
It’s a gently undulating course but you get a little bit of everything, footpaths, trail, forest, lake views, mountain views.
We’re centrally located so it’s easy to get to. If you stay anywhere in central Queenstown it’s no more than a 10 minute walk.
While in Queenstown…
Bungy jump where it all began
Ultimate Queenstown zipline with Ziptrek