Queenstown Extreme

The Nevis -a 134 metre bungee jump
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So, I’ve been tasked with the responsibility of blogging the most Extreme place on Earth, Queenstown, New Zealand. After a long journey from Christchurch via the picturesque Lake Tekupo through horrible, overcast, drizzly weather we arrived in Queenstown. We were staying in a hostel called Southern Laughter in 2 rooms of 4 next door to each other, each with its own small living room – perfect!

We were keen to explore the town as soon as possible so ventured out to a restaurant called Winnies – a highly recommended pizza place. Although a little dark, we later found out that it had a roof that could pneumatically open! From here we moved to the Worldbar. We heard that the first 100 drinks from 9 O’ Clock would be free so that was all the persuasion we needed!! I think 50/60 of those drinks went to our group! It’s a world famous bar that serves its cocktails in teapots – very novel!!

Posted by Reidy (guest blogger)

Reidy (our guest blogger) preparing to jump
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The next day was spent recovering, then exploring the town some more. We also booked ourselves onto Bungy jumping, River Surfing, Canyon Swinging and Jet Boating. The most expensive half an hour of our lives!! Wednesday was to be one of the biggest nights in Queenstown. We were back in Worldbar again, this time we had our photo taken on entry, and if we saw ourselves on the big screen then we would win a prize. Wouldn’t you know it, the next thing we saw was a blown up picture of Paul. He was promised an hour of free drinks (!!) which turned out to be all of six :o(

The whole group gearing up for the river surfing
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There’s no better cure for a hangover than jumping from 134m with nothing but underwear elastic to keep you from crashing into the rocks below. That’s what we had decided to do to ourselves on the Thursday morning at the Nevis Bungy Jump one of the four highest in the world!! Half of us were taken out to the cable car and no sooner than the rest of us had had our safety brief, Paul was falling from the great height only to bounce back up in the nick of time. Soon to follow were Dell and Cos before the final three were taken over to the main pod and before I knew it I had jumped out followed by Ad and Nat. It was truly an amazing experience and, caught up in the moment of it all, Nat and I decided to give it another go. This time we went with style, they called it ‘the bullet’. You keep your hands in your pockets then bounce out head first like a bullet – amazing.

Those who were brave enough, on the Shot-over jet!
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Friday was set to be action packed so we got up early and travelled to our river surfing entry point. After putting on freezing cold wetsuits, we were shown the basic techniques to use whilst floating down the river. I think we were all surprised at the speed of the river as we got in, but we quickly mastered the rapids and most had a really good time, although some (Nat) found that the rapids were somewhat overpowering at times!! The exciting video of this can be found here.

A brave bunch of canyon-swingers!!
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Next we were taken to the Shotover River for the Shotover Jetboat where a 16 seater powerful jet boat took us through canyons and over very shallow water at breakneck speeds. The boat only needs 4 inches of water under the back third of the boat allowing the driver to skim us across seemingly impassable beaches narrowly missing shear rock faces. It was lucky the hand rail was heated because travelling at those speeds was freezing!!

The final part of the day was Canyon Swinging. This involved being strapped to into a giant swing (as the name suggests) over a canyon. You are then dropped for 60metres before you begin to swing round over a river. The safety guys that strap you into your harness really made this jump more terrifying as they played mind games with you before you jump. Comments such as ‘I’m sure it will be ok’, ‘I don’t know, it’s my first day’ and ‘is that strap done up properly, it looks like it could come loose’ are not what you want to hear before you jump/fall/fly off the edge!! The main advantage of this ‘sport’ is that you can chose which style you would like to use to jump. I chose ‘the rope trick’ where you hold your own weight (as well as the weight of the cables!!) from a single rope until you decide to let go (apparently he didn't lasted long, same as usual then- Ed). Adam and Paul chose ‘the chair’ where you push yourself back on your chair like you used to at school, until you go too far and fall completely backwards over the edge. Nat went for the quadruple backflip, as you do!! Once again, Nat and myself couldn’t get enough of it and we went again with different styles this time.

Adam falling off his chair!!
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After another night of carnage we were off to Dunedin on the Saturday...