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Walking through Queestown centre, every 3rd window along the main shopping street is filled with yet another impossibly inventive contraption designed to let you jump off, be dropped off or get thrown off ridiculously high things - without the usual consequences....maybe. The plaster casts around town told a different story.
Queenstown is the adventure capital of New Zealand and it was with this in mind we had expected a sprawling party town. Instead, we were nicely surprised to find a compact, buzzing town set on the shore of a huge lake brimming with incredibly clear water that looks even more incredibly blue from a distance.
On arrival, we had spent an hour or so in a visual museum, filled with all kinds of optical tricks including rooms that made people to the left look like giants compared with people on the right - the same techniques used in the Lord of the Rings films. Here we did a warm up for our days of adventure ahead and completed a two storey maze and then decided to start the next day the easy way with a day of mountain biking.
The hire shop suggested an area about 10km away so we cycled along the lakeside roads until we got there. Here we discovered this was no cycle in the park...this was a mountain bike area set amongst the dense woodland by the lake with graded runs like a ski resort. The black runs had ´mandatory Jumps, technical steeps and forced air´...as such we decided to avoid these and got to some of the easier runs.
Perhaps that should read `allegedly` easier. These actually turned out to still be crazy-steep with jumps, wooden ramps and loads of boulders and rocks. To get down some of the steeper hills we had to pull on the brakes, balance the bike and slide down as if we were sledging on the dust. It really was brilliant as we went up with growing sluggishness, our legs increasingly leaden throughout the day, before flying down with inversely greater speed and volume of shouts.
After hours and miles of cycling we just managed the the road cycle back to town where we hobbled straight to the supermarket to buy a kilo of the amazing green lipped mussels found all over NZ. We cooked these up with ginger, shallot, coconut milk, a chopped red chilli, a little bit of sugar and a lime´s worth of juice until they opened up. A sprinkling of fresh corriander later and we took a welcome seat, topping up the lost calories of the day before heading off on a night out and a rest day the next. This was not without its excitement though - we had a bit of a coincidence bumping into some family friends from Dundee, purely by chance but great to see some familiar faces for a quick pint!
On our final day in Queenstown we decided to go and see another Queenstown favourite - the Kawaru Bridge bungy jump. It`s not the highest in the area (the highest in Queenstown is called the Nevis Highwire and involves flinging yourself from a cable car 140m above a ravine) but it is the first ever Bungy as well as the most scenic, set from an old iron D shaped bridge 43 metres above an azure blue river which melts slowly through the white cliffs of its gorge. We were transfixed for an hour or so as people with seemingly little regard for their own safety lept off the wooden platform...bungy jumping has always been something that I have considered to be up there with the most stupid activities you could ever actually choose to do...
Which was the main reason I thought I should probably just go for it...
Right On...oh..sorry that was the last blog wasn´t it?
I nervously went to the desk and paid. Immediately I was told to cross to the middle of the bridge, Eleanor with me and looking a little worried, where the ´Bungy Masters´ told me to sit down while they tied my feet together with a towel and a climping sling before putting me in a ´back up harness´...whoa...what was that - ´back up harness´, why do I need a ´back up harness?´...
Clearly experienced in dealing with nervous folk the answer when I questioned if I was tied in properly was a ´I hope so, I tied it, I`ll get into trouble if it isn`t´. Then I was told to get to the edge (harder than it sounds when your ankles are tied together) where I gingerly hopped and shuffled only to find nothing to hold onto. Oddly, I was afraid I might fall off the platform at this point...
No going back now...
Assistant one tells me to look left to the camera on the bank
Assistant two tells me to look straight ahead and smile to that camera
Assistant one says ´mate, when you jump, look forward and jump out - away from the platform, go head first. If you don`t jump out this could be messy´
Wh...What, MESSY???
I ask - are you sure it´s all ok?
Someone shouts ´no, we don´t second check the knots for Scottish people´
Assistant one says ´Enough of this, ONE, TWO, THREE´
...and I realise that I appear to have jumped off the platform.
The initial feeling is like floating as your jump takes you forwards and not down, then you start to plummet and the acceleration feels amazing. Just as you feel you can´t go any faster, you realise you are still accelerating. I couldn´t take a breath in and the world just flew by me. Next I can see the water looming and I put my arms into a dive, I remember thinking I can´t feel the rope...but as the water gets closer you realise you are going slower and slower. Your arms and head dip into the water. There is no hard jerk, just a smooth braking. Then you get sucked back up again and loose all orientation whilst regaining the abiliy to breathe.
Deep Breath...
Next thing I know, it´s over and a guy in a boat is holding out a pole to me to guide me, upside down, into a boat to shore.
Genuinely, an amazing experience, never felt anything like it. I do feel something just now though, what is it? Guilt? As if I´ve done something wrong?
That´s it!
I think I just gave away who got the speeding ticket!
Oops...
Ah well, next up were a night in Merchison followed by an afternoon in Christchurch where we managed to sell nearly all of our camping gear by poaching shoppers from camping stores in town before getting on a plane to South America where no one speaks English apparently...Hasta Luego.
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