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Other entries in Queenstown

Need An Adrenalin Fix? Look No Further

Our journey here from Haast was both the most picturesque and scary of our time here in New Zealand so far. We had to get up early as it's a long way, but this means that the roads are frozen solid. Fortunately we only found ourselves moving sideways in a 3 ton shed once, the rest of the time the old beauty behaved herself very well. We stopped at numerous waterfalls on the way, some of which are just a couple of minutes walk from the road, which makes a nice change. Like the ice at the Franz Josef Glacier, the cold and deep water is a beautiful shade of blue. The pebbles are covered in large ice crystals, but I was less keen on these as at one point they conspired to try to make me take a dip in the previously mentioned water.

We stopped for lunch in Wanaka and deliberated what to do next. There are two routes from there to Queenstown: the main Highway 6 and the Cardrona Valley road, which is used to access the skifield. The latter is more direct and the sun had dried most of the roads we'd been on by then, so we thought we'd give it a go. Thankfully, the skifield hasn't been opened yet due to lack of snow, so it was relatively easy going and allowed us to take in some of the breathtaking views over the Otago mountains.

On arrival we quickly made our plans for the next couple of days. Our activities began on Tuesday morning with bungy jumping at the biggest jump in Australasia: the Nevis Valley. It's 134m tall, which is about 3 times the height of Nelson's Column. Once we'd checked in we were taken to the site in a 4WD bus, which was driven around the last part of the route (a sheep station) as if the driver was trying to scare us in advance of arriving so that the jump wouldn't seem like such a big deal. Basically it's a big cable car, suspended over the middle of the valley, with a small carriage to get the jumpers out to it. We watched the first couple from the balcony before it was our turn to go across, but unfortunately for him, the first guy had a terrible fear of heights. Eventually he was one of 3 in our group of about 16 who didn't jump. This is quite a lot, as they told us that only about 0.1% of people don't jump now that you don't get a refund anymore.

Arriving in the cable car we were almost immediately fitted with ankle straps to complement the harnesses we already had on. Within another couple of minutes I was sitting in what looks like something that belonged to a gynaecologist, with my feet up in stirrups, being attached to the rope. Then it was a shuffle to the edge (my feet were tied together), a 3-2-1 countdown and then there I was hurtling toward the ground. The freefall lasts about 8 seconds, but the fun continues as you bounce up and down, which I'd expected to be quite jerky, but it was actually difficult to tell whether you were moving up or down. By the time I was winched to the top it was Laura's turn and she was equally quick to make her way to the edge and jump off. I barely had a chance to get the camera she was so keen. As we waited around, half the faces looking nervous, the others grinning madly, I decided it was too much fun not to have another go. Plus, as they're a bit slow at the moment, they'd reduced the price to about a third of the full price. This time I was told to hold on to my leg straps and look straight down, to reduce air resistance, making the fall even quicker. As I knew what to expect I could enjoy it a bit more, and would have gone again if there were more other people doing the same.

Back in town there was no time to rest as we were soon on another bus to the next heart-stopping activity. This was a ride on the Shotover Jet, throught the Shotover River Canyons. Their jet boats have twin V6 Buick engines, generating 500hp and propelling up to 800 lites of water through the jets every second. Oddly, no-one seemed to want to sit in the front seats, so that's where we ended up. For the next half hour we skirted around mounds of pebbles and dodged rocks, until there was a flat patch of water when Mike, the driver, would put in a 360 or two. Even though they've had over 2 million passengers it was still easy to believe that around the next corner might have been a rock to make things very ugly.

We decided to reward ourselves with reputedly the best hot chocolate in New Zealand, at a little shop called Patagonia. It might be the best, but it's not even close to to rivalling the Lindt Cafe in Sydney. Still a good way to calm down though.

Yesterday morning we had the last part of our package, a 15,000ft skydive with N-Zone. It's odd, but freefalling for over a minute with a man strapped to your back is a lot less scary than the 8 seconds of the day before. This may have had something to do with our not having to wait around - as soon as we got out of the van we were given our suits and the limited briefing and were in the plane within about 10 minutes of arriving. The plane looked quite big from the outside, but inside the 9 of us (three punters, with instructors and videographers) it was very intimate. The flight only took about 15 minutes, allowing us enough time to appreciate the mountainous scenery. Next, one of the videographers slid the door open, climbed out and hung on to the outside of the plane (what a job) waiting for me to jump. Just a few seconds later Laura was in the same position, and just like the day before, showed no hesitation.

A 200kph wind is quite chilly, so although we'd enjoyed the freefall we were both relieved when the 'chutes were opened and the harnesses loosened a little. It's then so quiet that you can have a pleasant chat with your instructor before swooping around for a while, then landing where you started off. We were expecting to be so much more scared but it was more like a scenic flight, but just drifting to the ground instead of having to stare out of the plane window.

This morning we've had our last adrenalin fuelled activity before leaving town, a round at CaddyShack City [linked site is the one in Christchurch where the design is the same], which is the craziest crazy golf the world has ever known. Each hole includes dozens of moving parts and the course must have taken thousands of man hours to make. A perfect way to conclude our time here.

We'd heard numerous consistent reports that Queenstown was a horrible place, with no character, just full of teenagers waking up in the morning, spending all the money they'd planned to use for bungy jumping to fund an endless tour of the pubs. However, it's actually quite nice, and if we had more time, and there was a lot more snow, it would definitely be worth sticking around for a while to sample some of the snowsports at the numerous skifields in the area. Sadly, we don't have more time, and we must resume our odyssey in search of the bird that flies through the water.

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