Adventure Queenstown

I was blessed with a four day holiday in Queenstown last weekend. Something about exploring the Spring Loaded Festival and the extensive thrill seeker adventures available in the area. Here's an attempt to skite to others about what Derek and I got to do ...


Thursday


We flew down to Queenstown on a beautiful clear day. For those of you who haven't flown into Q'town before, the plane (large plane, none of these pencil plane things) comes down over top of ski fields (wave to the skiers everyone) and inbetween the mountains. It's quite breaktaking.
Our accomodation was The Dairy - a boutique hotel with a hot tub that looks out over the town, up to the Remarkables. We were the youngest people there by about 30 years. Still, can't complain when you can order a cooked breakfast including pancakes, with fresh orange juice and coffee brewed for you.




We got given a Jeep (with ridiculously low milage on it) as our rental car because we needed something to put our mountain bikes into (yeah right). This Jeep had seat warmers, electric seats that moved when you turned the ignition on and off, individual air conditioning controls, electric sunroof and my personal favourite, rain sensitive windscreen wipers. Rain sensitive!!!

We were taken out to dinner (where we tasted Sam Neill's Two Paddocks wine .. suppose it was pretty good for a $60 bottle of wine) and to see Rent (a rock musical about drugs, Aids and Bohemian life), which was pretty good for local theatre.


Friday

Parasailing


9am start. A gentle introduction into Q'town activities with a ten minute parasail around the lake. The parachute (charming smiley face) takes you up 200m above the lake. Nothing too adventurous. Only got slightly nervous when we appeared to be dropping down towards the water. Turns out it's the 'thrilling' part of the ride, when the boat suddenly moves forward, making you launch back up into the air at a medium rate of knots.

Hang gliding



THIS was my favourite of the weekend. We launched 2000ft up the Remarkables. My pilot was Matt, who had been flying for 13 years. After launching, we saw a hawk who had caught a thermal and so we followed him. I know it's cheesy but I was flying with the birds and it was an amazing feeling! We rode a thermal, keeping our altitude as opposed to dropping. Matt even let me have a go at steering (if you can call holding the bar and keeping it straight 'steering').



As you can see, you get dressed up like a punching bag before taking flight. I quite liked the red ... red makes you go faster you know. But tell me .. did the suit make my bum look big?
Coming in to land was as much of a highlight as launching. We came in a lot faster than I expected, but it was a pretty smooth landing - with a styley skid at the end. The camera on the glider unfortunately didn't work so I didn't get any pictures of us when we were up. Gutted.


Canyon Swinging.



After having had the time of my life hang gliding, I thought canyon swinging would be a logical flow on. Amped up and talking a lot, we marched down the five minute walk talking to our guide Crispy. He seemed a nice guy... (little did I realise how much of a teasing bastard he was)
We arrived intime to see Haggis leap off the platform in a very dramatic way, finishing with a ballet pose at the end (supposedly ballet). These guys jump off in climbing harnesses. We, however, had a full-body harness to keep us attached to the ropes.



Thinking I was ready, I went second. Who was I kidding? As soon as I got to the end of the Canyon, my coherent conversation turned into pitiful whimpers.
"Gone a bit quiet there?" (Crispy)
"Yeah. Yeah I have."

Crispy had decided I was going to jump off sideways with my hands held behind my back. After standing there for a minute, I decided that wasn't going to work and I created my own jump - affectionately named by Derek as "Hang On and Pray". I did it though! I finally 'jumped'. Reviewing the dvd showed I actually kinda just stepped off, in a very reluctant way.



I think my one word to describe the experience of a rushing towards certain death was 'shit' (edited out of the dvd). For the fall itself I think I shut my eyes, but as soon as the arc started, it was a blast! Nothing like letting go of the rope and spread eagling (or yoga star fishing on your back) while rushing through a canyon.

(Now this, is a big F*** off swing Jay, Tim and Martin!)

The guys that work at the Canyon Swing are great. They try to give you the most exciting ride by messing with your mind. Derek didn't get to choose what he wanted to do. He was given the chair of Death. Nothing like being strapped to a chair, then toppled over the platform backwards mid sentence.

Adventure day - led to a great sleep that night and a low key Saturday and Sunday .. more soon.