Queenstown: The Adventure Capital of New Zealand

Mike living on the edge
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Queenstown is to New Zealand what Banff is to Canada. For those of you that don't know, Banff is in the mountains, it's full of trendy, overpriced boutiques, restaurants, cafes, hotels and outdoor activities. Same with Queenstown.

You name it, you can do it in Queenstown. Bungy jumping, skydiving, white waterrafting, sledging (a different form of rafting whereyou're on a boogie board instead of in a raft), hiking, boating (Queenstown is on a beautiful lake) and many others. In fact, bungy jumping was "invented" in Queenstown. I say"invented" becauseit REALLY originatedin Vanuatu in the South Pacific centuries ago, but who really cares?

I was waiting for them to say, "Are you ready?!? OK, on the count of three...1...2......3......" But it wasn't anything like that. After a minute I asked them to, "Just say when". They shrugged their shoulders and said, "When. What are you waiting for?". "Oh, Ok", I thought, "I guess I'll jump". And down I went.

The view of Queenstown and area from the top of Queenstown Hill (a nice hike)
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You're all probably wondering if we did the bungy. The answer is yes and no. Yes, we jumped off a small platformwith just one cord saving us from splatting on the canyon floor over 100m below us. But no, it wasn't called a bungy jump. We did what's called "the canyon swing" (http://www.canyonswing.co.nz/). With the bungy jump they strap your ankles together so you jump head first, and then when you're done you're dangling upside down until they retrieve you at the bottom. With canyon swing you're strapped into a full body harness so you have complete control over how you want to plummet. Also, with bungy you justjump downwards, and bounce up and down a couple of times. WIth canyon swing,you're a big pendulum. It's considered the worlds biggest swing. After you free fall for about 60m the cord swings you out over thecanyon floor, and it's so smooth that you don't even realizewhen you've finished falling and have started swinging.

Mike practicing his modelling for a bottled water commercial
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Does this mean that canyon swing is less intense than bungy. No way! Since you're strapped in with the full body harness you have complete control over how you jump. You can jump forward, backwards, blindfolded, doing flips, starting from a handstand, you name it. The guys working theretold us about guys jumping strapped onto their bikes (so the bike falls with them). One of the more extreme jumps is where you're strapped to a chair, you sit right on the edge of the platform, then you lean back until you fall over backwards.

Seconds before the big canyon swing jump
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How did we jump? Forward facing, screaming the whole way down. We have pictures of the jump too. As soon as we get a chance to scan them we'll include them onto the website here.

Did we have fun. You betcha!!

Were we nervous? I'd be lying to say that we were as cool as a Saskatchewan winter day. Neither of us felt frozen with fear on the edge of the platform or anything like that, but the screaming that came out wasn't just for show.Just before I jumped I rememberthinking, "This is no big deal". In fact me and the 2 guys working there were just chatting away. I was waiting for them to say, "Are you ready?!? OK, on the count of three...1...2......3......" But it wasn't anything like that. After a minute I asked them to, "Just say when". They shrugged their shoulders and said, "When. What are you waiting for?". "Oh, OK", Ithought, "I guess I'll jump". And down I went.

The original bungy bridge (that we didn't jump off)
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The feeling of free falling that close to the ground was different from free falling at 12,000 feet from the airplane. Jumping out of a plane is a very surreal feeling, like you're just watching yourself jump. You know that there's a lot of space between you and the ground. Jumpinginto a canyon, however, is a different matter. If something goes wrong there's not much time to think about it. In fact,your best bet is to not even think aboutit at all. just jump and enjoy the adrenaline rush of it all.

One of our bus mates, Helen, did jump off though
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It was so much fun to watch Heather jump. I think she was pretty much feeling the same way as me. Excited, not nervous.She said afterwards that the scariest part was being winched back up and having to step back onto the platform that she just jumped off of.

We both had a great timein Queenstown. Beautiful setting, lots of activites...what's not to like???

Michael& Heather