Week 3 - Queestown

Queenstown.

The self proclaimed adrenalin capital of the world, a party town for the adventurer. If you have the money (and you really do need the money) you can ride a jet boat through a canyon, be catapulted across a valley, do a seven second bungy jump, skydive 15,000 feet from a plane, and play crazy golf.

The very idea of a bungy jump did not appeal to me, but on arriving in Queenstown it had already been organised. I was met by three guys I'd met in Canada; Tim, Lawrence and Jack. And it being Jacky Boy's birthday an' all, off we went in our new car (I'd apparently chipped in for a car) to The Kawarau Bridge, the birthplace of the bloody stupid thing.

The drive there was stunning. For the entire journey we cruised past endless vineyards and were dwarfed by huge mountain landscapes. There just seemed to be no end to the incredible scenery. If it wasn't for a few sparse farms here and there you really would think you were on another planet. It's the sheer scale of it all.

So, we arrived at the bridge, stood on the viewing platform and watched in nervous silence as panic stricken girls changed their minds, and macho guys took ages to compose themselves before throwing themselves off the platform. This was a stupid idea we all agreed. And then it was our turn.

We kindly let Jack go first as it was his birthday and waited patiently with the cameras down below. After an unacceptable amount of time I went up to the bridge to find Jack allowing people to go in front of him every time it was his turn. So after a quiet word with the attendants I went back down to the viewing area and left them tying his legs together.

To be fair to Jack though, he jumped pretty much as soon as he'd got to the end of the platform, no messing. As did Tim and Lawrence, although one of Lawrence's shoes flew off mid jump and was carried off down river to the land of loose items.

I was next up, and despite crapping myself in the build up, I actually felt excited as I shuffled out onto that narrow ledge, and with a wave to the millions of people watching on TV (in my head) I swan dived. Such a rush! I fell for what seemed like ages while my insides floated around in zero gravity, and after I'd finished bouncing up and down for a bit I was lowered slowly to two guys in a dingy and driven to a bank. And that was that. Bungy jump - done.

Still buzzing, we drove back to town, bought Lawrence some footwear ("afternoon - do you have this trainer in a left?") and sank numerous cold beers, talking excitedly about the experience. While Jack and Lawrence found a room in a hostel, Tim and I picked up our press passes for next weeks festival, and checked into our four star hotel.

As we wandered back into town we were greeted by thousands of people lining the streets, all wanting to shake our hands for our successful jump. The mayor turned up to present us with the key to the town, and a local sculptor squeezed through the crowds asking if he could create a statue of us for the town square. We were then ushered into a bar by three sexually frustrated brazilian models who stroked our hair all night while the bar staff made us mojitos. Then a limo turned up and we all went back to their place and...

Ahem. Yeah, anyway the next day we all nursed the inevitable hangovers. We'd got a bit carried away with our bungy experience and the buzz had lasted way into the early ours. And now we were keen to avoid anymore adrenalin injections for the time being.

Tim pointed out a weird looking building up on a nearby hill and we all agreed it would be a good test for our little car. It turned out to be an old set for an obscure Disney film called The Rescue. A mock Korean prison had been built at the top of the hill back in the 80's, and had been left to crumble ever since. It was a very surreal experience, wandering around a crumbling Korean prison amongst deer, surrounded by snow capped mountains. Very cool.

Also dotted around were mini signposts showing where various scenes from Lord Of The Rings were filmed. To the hard core fan I'm sure this is a big deal. But to me it looked like any other cliff, meadow or tree. Enough of Lord Of The Rings already! Anyway, it was a really superb morning. Our little Mitsubishi showed us it could handle steep off road climbs, and we got in a good fix of mountain air for our abused bodies.

After a bit of lunch Tim and I waved goodbye to Lawrence and Jack as they drove our car back to Wanaka to try find a house for us to rent. We, however, had other things to sort out. It was the start of the Queenstown Festival next week and we still had to get our story straight.

We'd decided that our fictional lifestyle magazine was a free publication with a circulation of about 20,000 based in the North West. I was a Designer / Journalist, Tim was a photographer and we'd left a staff of nine back in the UK to cover the Summer festivals. We'd already blagged our press passes. All we were after was free food and drink, access to some swanky parties, and free snowboarding for a week. We just had to avoid answering too many questions.

This was going to be a lot of fun!

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