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Published: December 12th 2005
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Queenstown #1
One of the many waterfront streets. I have arrived back in Wellington; I almost feel as if I'm back home in a way. After laying over in Christchurch for 4 days being sick and not really anything to do I decided to get on back to Welly. I now have some time to put up some pictures from the last weeks down on the South Island, and tell a little bit about what we did. Wanaka is by far my favorite town of the South Island, I would enjoy living here if I ever had a chance. We stopped through on several occasions and would end up staying the night because we liked it so much. Queenstown was great as well, but it's just a little too much for me. People coming and going all the time, and you spend so much money there without realizing it. After finishing our hike in Mt. Aspiring Park we came back to Queenstown to relax and experience what this town has to offer. We only stayed for about 4 days though. This place really is the adventure capital of the world. There are so many activites to here that you could do something different every day and be able to
Queenstown #2
Waterfront with gondola on the hill. stay here for several months. I also learned that you can now add the word "heli" to any activity to make it much more extreme; such as heli biking, heli hiking, heli rafting(not sure how this works), and list goes on and on. This area also contains the most heavily concentrated Lord of the Rings filming sites, so there are lots of companys that take you on 4WD tours to the locations or heli tours. Luckily we got to see several of them without having to pay anything. The first couple of days were spent just wandering the town, eating real food(no more rice), and doing laundry. The walk from our hostel to the middle of town took my by the AJ Hackett Bungy office and every time I passed by I was tempted more and more to sign up until I finally did. AJ Hackett has taken over this area. Not only do they operate all of the bugy sites, but they now have their own clothing line, which is quite popular. Someone they have managed to make a market out of bungy jumping here...it's ridiculous. So, back to the bungy jumping. There are 4 main bungy sites around
Future transportation
I want one of these. Notice the "heli biking". Queenstown. One located at the top of the Queenstown Gondola which is like 47 metres, the original bungy at Kawarau Bridge which is 43 metres, Skippers Canyon which is 102 metres, and then the highest one, the Nevis Highwire, 143 metres(440 feet). Of course, if I'm going to bungy in New Zealand I want to go all out, so I signed up for the Nevis jump. It's about a 40 minute drive out of Queenstown, in a deep gorge over the Nevis River. There is a specially built "pod" which is suspended over the gorge by two cables, it's very intimidating when you see if for the first time. I only have a couple pictures because I had this girl video it for me with my camera, so once I get home people can see it. It was definately up there with heli skiing as far as adrenaline rushes go. It wasn't that scary except for right when you have to walk up to the jumping platform and put your toes over the edge. You try and not look down, but come on, everyone does. And then they are holding your bungy cord and drop it over the ledge and
Queenstown #3
The Remarkables ranged in the background. since it's so long and heavy when all the slack is gone it kinda jerks you and almost pulls you feet first off the ledge. But, there is guy there holding onto your harness so that doesn't happen. Then, they just tell you to put your arms out, and jump once they count down to 1. Once you jump, it's 8.2 seconds of free fall before the bungy even happens. It's such a rush because you are falling so far and the ground is just rushing towards you. You're still a good 20-30 feet from the water when you "bungy," but it feels a lot closer than that. I also didn't realize how much you bounce. You go up about as fast as you come down. Then, after about 4 or 5 bounces they winch you back up into the pod. I went in the early morning group, at 8am, because they needed people at that time. Because of that there were only about 10 of us, normally there are about 25 people in a group. We were done so early that we were all just hanging out in the pod and the bungy crew asked if anyone wanted to
Bungy pod
This is what you jump out of with a piece of rubber band attached to your ankles. I don't have a good picture that shows how far down it is. The video will show that though. do it again and try it a different way. A Dutch guy and I jumped at the oppurtunity so they strapped the thing to my ankles again and this time they attached my arms behind my back and made me jump like that so I couldn't act on my natural reaction to put my arms out in front of me once I was falling. This was a lot more scary for some reason, but still really fun. So, that's my bungy jumping experience in Queenstown. After leaving Queenstown we continued our journey south into Fiordland. Our hope was that we could get our hands on some kayaks and head out to Doubtful Sound, one of the many fiords in the national park. All of the outfitters were booked so we hung around Te Anau and then took the drive out to Milford Sound. Like I said in an earlier journal, I have never seen so many waterfalls. Then we drove back up through Queenstown/Wanaka to Mount Cook where we were washed out by four days of rain, which forced us to leave and go to Christchurch. All in all the South Island is as wonderful as all the pictures I've
Pod over the river
Another shot of the pod above the Nevis River, about 150 metres below. seen and stories I've heard about the place. But, I'm glad to be back in Wellington. The plan now is to head back up north, which a stop in Raglan to do some surfing, and then onto to the Bay of Islands to sit on the beach and eat seafood for the last remaining days. I can't believe it's time to head back into winter again, the summer is just starting to get good here.
well, it seems I forgot my other memory card with more pictures of Fiordland. I will put those up in a couple days.
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KateEighty
non-member comment
Fantastic
Ahhh... New Zealand looks as beautiful as ever, rain and all. Fiordland wouldnt be the same if it wasnt pouring with rain! New Zealand has to be one of my favourite destinations in the world. Good luck in your travels - http://www.kateonthego.blogspot.com/