New Zealand - Fiordland by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241248508
Publisher: Rough Guides

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Queens Park

Main entrance on Gala St

The vast Queens Park is Invercargill’s prime green space and has been a public reserve since 1869. Today there are lovely formal rose gardens, an 18-hole golf course and a walk-through aviary, among other delights. The park’s main entrance has a new statue of Burt Munro cocooned in streamlined fairings of his 1920 Indian motorcycle.

BURT MUNRO – INVERCARGILL’S LOCAL HERO

Few New Zealanders, let alone anyone in the rest of the world, knew about Burt Munro (1899–1978) until Roger Donaldson’s The World’s Fastest Indian hit movie screens in 2005. All of a sudden everyone had heard of this eccentric Invercargill mechanic who, in 1967, aged 68, set the under-1000cc speed record of 295kph (183mph) on a 1920 Indian Scout bike. He had spent years modifying the bike and testing it at Oreti Beach, just outside Invercargill.

His stock has been rising around the town ever since the movie’s release, with a display in the museum, a statue outside Queens Park, the original bike in E. Hayes and Sons Ltd shop, and the annual Burt Munro Challenge, four days of speedway and street racing, a hill climb and, of course, beach racing each November.

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