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Published: October 22nd 2008
Well after my nice peaceful time in Wanaka I now headed south towards the self proclaimed 'Adventure capital of the world' and judging by the number of shops I seen when I arrived offering everything from - skydiving, bungee jumping, canyon swinging, lugging, white water rafting, jet boating, paragliding, skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking, never mind all the different walks and boats trips etc etc!!!! I really didn’t think I was going to be getting bored to quickly lol.
The biggest problem I had was that when I started looking into the price of the activities it was so expensive. I had planned to do a bungee jump, canyon swing white water rafting and jet boating, but had to settle for just 2, so decided on jet boating and canyon swinging.
The first full day I had there was horribly cold and wet so just spent the day in the hostel, which was this really nice little hostel that felt more like a house and luckily had a big screen TV and a huge DVD collection. I did spent a bit of time walking around and finding out different info on all the activities and seeing if there were any discounts
etc! I couldn't believe the difference in temperature from just driving an hour south, it was so cold that it had even snowed that morning and there was fresh snow all on the surrounding mountains of the Remarkables.
By the second day the weather had cleared up considerably and even though it was still cold the sun still came out!! To I decided to make my way up to the top of the mountain behind the hostel. There was a gondola that takes you up the 450 meters to where the restaurant and viewing platform were, I went up for the view over Queenstown as I knew it would be beautiful site but there was also a luge track, which I had heard from ones of the girls in the hostel was great fun. I managed to purchase a gondola ticket plus 6 rides and just as was making my way up the mountain on the gondola, I received a message from my skiing buddy, Rob, He text me to say he was in Queenstown, so now I had a friend and a race track to race on!!!
It was so much fun as you just sit in this small
What lovely clear water!
Looks tempting but its bloody freezing!back mini go-kart with a set of handle bars which are connected to the front wheel, you push the handlebars forward to go and back to stop. The first couple of runs were good fun but with each run we kept getting faster and faster till the point I was going around each of the hairpin corner on 2 wheels! They were a couple of close calls where I near rolled it (many peope have done this - mainly English surprisingly enough!!) but I did however somehow manage to keep it on the track without injurying myself!
Not only was it a great little race track and hugely enjoyable but the views from up here were just stunning! We could see all the way back over Queenstown, the lake and many of the Southern Alps and ski resorts!
Well the lugging was fun but the excitement was going to get a whole lot more intense as I booked a combo trip on the ‘Overshot jet boat’ followed by the 109 meter high canyon swing! which is known to be the biggest swing in the world, the posters everywhere advertising this activity showing a girl halfway through the swing with
Lie back and don't worry about a thing!!
Yeah right!! what about the 109 meter drop i cant see!!!! a terrified face and red eyes with the slogan underneath saying - 'even my shit was scared'!!
I was taken by bus from Queenstown up into the valley to the Overshot river, a number of us where dropped of here and suited up to ride the most famous jetboat - the overshot jet!! there are a huge number of jet boats that operate in NZ but this is the only one that fly’s through a narrow canyon like this missing the walks and rocks by inches! So this was the only one I wanted to do obviously. The boats themselves are 500 horsepower and can reach speeds of between 70-80 kph in as little as 6 inches of water! There really are incredible powerful and fast boats.
We had 25 mins rapid journey up through this narrow canyon, skimming the sides of the walls and power slides around corners missing rocks by inches!!! There were a few times that the people in the back thought we were actually going to hit something lol!!! Another awesome thing this amazing boats can do it the famous 360 degree spins, they come flying along that then completely spin 360 degrees on the spot,
The Milford sound
The the mountains on either side were huge!! can you see the small boats next to them? the force that throws you sideway was so intense, you really had to hold on or you could have flown out ha ha! Plus you get completely covered in water. During the course of you trip up the canyon he kept doing these 360 spins faster and faster, through narrower gaps.
Please check out www.shotoverjet.com (there’s a video) or have a look at the videos posted on YouTube to really see how fast these boats are and how close they get to things, you would be amazed - only in New Zealand!!!!!!
Well the overshot jet boating was a great experience and really fun but it wasn't scary or gave you a decent adrenaline rush but that was just around the corner! All evening since I had booked it I was getting more and more nervous about doing the swing.
There was only me and another Aussie girl that booked to do the canyon swing, so from here we were then taken further up the river and onto the top of the gorge. At this point Jen didn’t have clue what she was letting herself into, she had just arrived in Queenstown and booked herself to do this
combo not really knowing what the swing was all about lol. We it would be rude of me not to show her wouldn’t it?? And also I didn’t want to be the only one bricking it!!! So I pulled out the brochure and proceeded to describe exactly what we were about to experience.....her face dropped and she turned pale lol!! - Oh I can be such a git!!!
Luckily when we arrived we found we were the only 2 there to do it, the driver who took us and the other staff around were real gits and used every opportunity to try and scare the crap out of us! like when I said, 'not many people here today?', he just replied, 'well not many people want to do it since that accident the other day!!!!, seems to have scared them off!!' also I mentioned ' having to work here must give you loads of opportunities to have a go' which he replied ' not a chance I know how dangerous it is!!'.
I had had many people say they are a great laugh but they really mess with your mind especially when you are so nervous anyway! They even
The overshot river
Just about to head in to the canyon had the beginners guide to canyon swinging, which they pretended to hide when I walked down to the jump area.
So they asked who wanted to go first so thought bollocks to it, I need to get this over and done with! They started to strap me in, then made me wear a lifejacket over the top!!! 'Just in case' one of them said!!!
One of the best things about this over the bungee jump is that there are many ways to jump, fall or drop of the ledge and there are all rated in pant ratings (1-5) - 1 being very scary and 5 being very, very, very scary!! Well they somehow managed to convince me to do the pin jump/pin drop (5 pant rating) where I had to stand sideways on to the edge with my feet together, hands behind my back and head looking down and then JUMP! I remember the first thought when I got to the edge was,' what the hell am I just about to do!', 'this has to be the stupidest thing I have ever done!’ As he was strapping me in he uncoupled me from the safety harness and was just
The overshot jet
500 horsepower and 70-80kms/hour!!!! this is how all boats should be!!! about to attach me to the main rope when one of them gave me a little push and shouted 'becareful you're not attached to anything!!', I nearly shit myself right then and there!!! the bastards!!! what I hadn't seen was that there WAS a second landyard securing me! I thought he was just about to knock me over the edge with nothing attached!
Anyway i finally stood at the edge did the count down and much to my legs disagreement i dropped off the ledge and holy shit!!! The inital few seconds of free fall were so quick, i felt like i couldnt breathe, but as soon as the rope caught and swung me the 200 meter arc through the valley i realised i had to do it again!! that was one of the greatest rushs i have ever had!! (Well I did hit around 150kph in a matter of seconds!)
They pulled my back up and I said ‘I gotta to do that again!’ I watched Jen do hers and once she got brought back up again, they decided that i needed to do the Elvis cutaway - They explained that I was to be suspended over the
The overshot jet
The is one quick boat, even in only 6 inchs of water canyon on my back looking skywards, with my legs crossed over the rope, I then had to lean back and watch the rocks go flying by! - you have got to be joking i thought!! But i didnt really get the chance, before i knew it I was strapped in and suspended there, awaiting my fate!! They told me to look back, and if you have seen my video of this on my facebook, you will see how I lent back had to put my arms out stretched behind my head and look back towards the rock. I found this particularly hard as I knew at any moment they could pull the pin and I would drop like a sack of spuds! But they kept joking around etc and I had the briefest lapse of concentration and at that exact moment he pulled the pin, and I just dropped so fast, don’t listen to closely to what I shouted in the video because it caught me completely by surprise. But this time it was even better and even more scary, so guess what I had to do it just one more time!!!
The 3rd time I did it, I made
The Canyon swing
I cant really type what my first thought were of this when i first seen it, but if was something like: What the F*$% am i doing the decision I wanted to do the chair! As I had heard about it and just had to try it. It really was the craziest experience strapping yourself into a piece of garden furniture positioning yourself on the edge of a ledge with a 109 meter drop and then tilting yourself backwards till you reached the point of no return and just tumbled head over heels, seeing sky, rock, valley, water in succession!! But I have to say this was my favorite, I don’t think I have ever had quite so many endorphins in my body all at one time.
Each time I did it, it was still just as scary but the moment you fall it’s the most amazing and most exhilarating feeling. I really would recommend this to anyone! It is without doubt one of the best things I have ever done!
It was especially nice that there were only 2 of us up there and we were not rushed though like it is at the bungee jump, we were really well looked after and the boys up there were at great laugh and really made the experience even more enjoyable.
I defiantly am not worried about
The rugged NZ landscape
This is the mountain I climbed after speak to you last week Mart!! doing the bungee jump when I finally get around to doing it! I have heard from many people that they rate this scarier than the Nevis bungee! (Which was until recently the world’s highest!)
During my time here, I did also get the chance to do some walking around the town as well as finding this great walk up to the top of another mountain that looked out over the Queenstown and lake, but this was a lot harder than I expected it to be, it was one of those hills that doesn’t look big from the ground because the trees obscure the top, but once you start climbing it never ends!!! It turned out to be higher than the mountain where the gondola track was lol, but it was all worth it for the views!
I did spend a few nights out on the town but as I had a bad throat for the majority of the time I was in Queenstown, so I couldn’t drink that much- which at least saved me some money!! I did still however enjoy one of the clubs called the ‘Bullock bar’, which if anyone has seen the film ’ Coyote
ugly’ was basically just like that!! Well bar the staff managed to persuade 3 girls up from the crowd to dance on the bar and then the oter bar girls soaked them with water sprinklers!!! Oh it was such a horrible sight I had to put down my drink and walk out lol!!- Yeah right!
On my last day here in Queenstown I booked myself on a trip to the Milford sound, which is judged to be one of the most impressive natural sights in the world, and makes up part of the Fiordland national park. You take a boat trip up this estuary towards the Tasman Sea while you pass by these massive sheer rock faces that are 1200 meters high on either side. One of the peaks reaches up to nearly 1600meters straight out from the sea!! But unfortunately due to the geographic position it is also the wettest place in New Zealand with 7-9 meters of rainfall a year and of the 365 days in that year over 200 of them it rains!! That’s worse than Wales!!!
It was a 4.5 hour journey on a bus to get there and as soon as we left
Queenstown it started to rain. We did stop a few times on the way to see some places of interested but it was either to wet or to cloudy to see anything exciting. Luckily however by the time we got to our boat it had stopped raining and the cloud was starting to lift slightly. We had a lovely 1.5 hour cruise down the fiord, where we seen many waterfalls as well as a few seals. One of the waterfalls, the boats goes right under and as I was stood at the front I got soaked.
The rock faces on either side had been carved out many thousands of years ago from huge glaciers making there way to the sea and if you looked as the rock faces either side you could still see all the deep gashes and lines from the moving ice as it cutaway the rock, in was incredible. In some of the pics, you can’t even see the boats in front of the cliffs, as the mountains are so vast the boast get lost it the picture!
I can see why this is the top destination to visit in NZ, and even for all
Not like the back in England
But a whole lot cheaper to visit the cloud, it was still amazing but I do aim to come back here on a clear day and do the 3 day Milford walk with is meant to be incredible! I could imagine this place been breathtaking on a clear day.
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Juan
non-member comment
Hey m8!!!
I can not believe that a couple of months ago I was with you in Uk!!! I should be there too!! I see that you're having a great time, enjoing avery second. Take care and keep on follow you're way ( which way is that) :-P See you soon my friend ;-)