Queenstown

So far in New Zealand we’ve seen a lot of the outdoors. Very impressive outdooredness at that – beautiful volcanoes, sublime beaches, spectacular lakes and waterfalls… you get the picture. And of course we’ve had some fantastic encounters with wildlife along the way. But as well as its untouched natural state, New Zealand is also famous for adventure tourism. You know – white water rafting, skiing, jet boating, parachuting, that sort of thing. And the capital of adventure tourism in New Zealand is Queenstown.

Queenstown is in the middle of the southern South Island, amongst the mountains on the shore of Lake Wakatipu. It’s another idyllic setting – although when we first arrived it was pouring with rain and looked incredibly bleak! We thought we should enter into the spirit of the place, and so as soon as the weather cleared up we decided to take a gondola to the top of the nearest mountain so we could jump off! Yes, bungy! Neither of us had tied it before, and as commercial bungy jumping was started in New Zealand it seemed only appropriate to give it a go here…

We fancied ‘The Ledge’ bungy. This 45m drop is placed right at the top of the mountain (conveniently near the gondola station), so as you plummet from the edge you have fantastic views of Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu 400m below you. Making the drop seem even more impressive… It’s one of the places where they strap the bungy rope to a harness you wear on your body rather than your feet, so you can take a running jump over the edge. Gary decided not to run – he kind of stepped over and then went straight down! I ran and then dived over the edge…

It’s a strange feeling as you drop – your mind knows that you’re strapped to a thick elastic band but your body protests ‘what have you done!’ as you jump! I think it’s impossible not to yelp with surprise as you actually freefall – and this goes on for some time. And trust me, it feels a lot longer than the few seconds it is! Gary had an advantage here. As he couldn’t jump with his glasses on (and he’s virtually blind without them), he had reassuringly fuzzy images as he fell – compared with my crystal clear views of Queenstown 400m below me! Argh! But then you feel some reassuring resistance on the rope, slow down a bit and – doing – bounce back up all over the place! Great fun! Really silly!

Anyway, we now have to abandon the Southern bits of the world, and start to return north. We think we’ve just passed the point where we’re the furthest from the UK in Te Auau. Now we have a very long journey ahead to Nelson at the top of the South Island, before we loose our little Nissan car and jump back on the ferry across the Cook Strait in a few days time.