Bunji? Paraglide? Canyon Swing? Fly by Wire? Jet Boats? Ummmm, who would, ay?

It's Al here:

Queenstown has been a destination that has been on my wish list for many years due to it's reputation for being the adrenaline capital of the world. And as soon as we planned to come to NZ I had pencilled in at least 3 days of adrenaline fuelled hedonism.

I replied with "Gimp Boy Goes To Hollywood"

When we first arrived we just decided to take in the views of the Lake and the remarkables mountain range as a back drop. The next day, I couldn't wait to get going, so headed straight for the AJ Hacket Bungy shop in town. AJ Hacket was the first company to start commercialised Bungy Jumping in the 80's, so they've had the most practice at it. After all, if your going to throw yourself off something into the abyss, you want to make sure your going to come back up again don't you? I had already decided that "The Ledge" was the jump for me, with fantastic views over Queenstown with the remarkables as a backdrop it makes for a stunning picture. Booking the jump combined with the gondala (NZ speak for a cable car) and the "Luge" saved me a little bit of money.

So riding up the gonadala you begin to appreciate the view over Queenstown. Then a chair lift up even higher to the top of the Luge track. The Luge was something else I was looking forward to, it's basically a downhill go-cart track with banked corners and was fantastic fun. After a few runs by both of us, Jes decided that she wanted to have a little bit more fun and pronounced that she wished to go paragliding off the mountain. She had clearly started to forget about her fear of heights as she went off the mountain and glided down.

The Swiss man that took her said she'd be back in time for my jump, however they didn't take off until 20 minutes before I was due to jump. Something to do with the wind having to be right! I have a vision of him standing there with his finger in the air. As I had to wait for so long, I had to delay my jump. So there I was sitting at the top of the Gondala awaiting her arrival back at the top and when your sat on your own you start to think about what your about to do. Too much time to think about it resulted in me biting down my actual fingers never mind my nails! Needless to say I was starting to brick it a bit.

But heading for the jump I started to calm down a bit, and thought I can do this. Getting my harness on the guy asked if I wanted to do anything fancy? The beauty of the ledge is that your not strapped in by your feet (just by your waist) so you can jump however you want. He suggested I just did a running jump, which I thought was a good idea. He counted me down from 5 and as I got running there was no turning back and off I leapt. A great feeling as you jump, you just can't replicate it. the people I'd seen before kind of went head first, but I'd obviously learn't a bit from skydiving and from tunnel camps at airkix and glided down keeping horizontal. It was just like a base jump, but instead of a parachute I was bounced around a few times in a sitting position, which has to be more comfortable than dangling by your feet for a few minutes. Wise choice of jump I reflected, as I took in the views.

When we returned to ground level at the bottom of the gondala we decided to have a go at Extreme mini golf (is everything extreme in this town?) It was good fun and had extremely well made models which didn't look tacky at all like mini golf normally does. However there was one main difference here: I actually won this time as Jes had a bit of a headache from all the excitement of the day. Nice turnaround for the books!

The following day, I woke up earlier than expected and foolishly decided to go for a run down to the Shotover Canyon. I ran all the way there as it was downhill. stopped for a few minutes to get bitten by a few sand flies and began my run back up the hill. I lasted all of about 100m before I realised that I was an idiot and there was a reason that I don't run. Because it's not a pleasurable past time!

First stop that day, was the Shotover Jet. This is another activity I'd been looking forward to. going on a powerfull Jet boat in a deep river canyon. I was still amased at the ability of the Jet boat to skim along in very shallow water, I think he said 400mm depth! but the most amasing part is it's ability to do 360 degree spins on the spot, owing to the ability to direct the jets wherever. However I did feel that it's speed was a bit lame and didn't go as fast as I'd expected or led to believe in their promotional material I'd seen. Two 3.8 litre V6's didn't quite cut the mustard or sound throaty enough for me. Take note Shotover Jet: Two 5 litre V8's are needed in your next boats!!! But they are very manouvreable and can skim inches away from the canyon walls to make the girlies scream a little bit which I suppose was prett cool and we did get a little bit wet too which adds to the fun I suppose.

For the rest of the day we went into town for some souvenier shopping and then went to play frisbee golf. It is pretty good fun and much harder than you would imagine. Our frisbee's we have are the professional skimmers but they're the begginers ones so don't go as far as the proper ones. As a result we were taking about 10 shots on a par 3! By the 18th hole we were pretty knackered chasing the frisbees around. You have to run as the course is set in the botanical gardens and there's lots of kids about primed to pinch your frisbee.

For the following day I couldn't decide whether I wanted to do the Shotover Canyon Swing or the Fly By Wire. By the time I'd reached the booking office, I thought why not just do them both? And before you knew it I'd booked an action packed morning.

First stop was the Canyon Swing, we got picked up from our camp site and taken up a 4WD track. The guys there were really friendly, but seem to have an unatural fascinacion with "The Hoff" (David Hasslehoff) with lots of amusing Hoff posters around the place. Something to do with thier general manager looking like him or something like that. My host/ bus driver blokie actually turned out to be from Deddington and went to school at Bloxham School, about 1/4 mile away from where I grew up. Small world, hey!

Jes had been looking at the brochure and at the many jump styles in particular and decided that if I was folish enough to do this then she was to choose which jump I would get to do. So when I was down on the platform and asked what type of jump I was going to do, I replied with "Gimp Boy Goes To Hollywood" so as to not let Jes down, or be called a wus for the rest of the trip more like. Was I going to regret this decision? I don't think so, otherwise I wouldn't have gone ahead with it.

So, there I am, hanging upside down over the canyon, 109m up from the river bed below me, arching my back and facing the cliff face in front of me. The guys said they'd count me down from 5, but the bastards pulled the cord just after 5! Oh but that added to the excitement though, as I wasn't expecting it. It was a fantastic ground rush having the canyon walls wooshing past me only metres in front of my eyes and then you smothly turn over and glide into an arc as you swing across the canyon floor. Then you can look up and see that you've just freefalled 60m and your now casually swinging in a 200m arc before you get winched back up. I would describe this experience as Fan-Bloody-Tastic!!! It was better than the bungy jump and definately more exciting. Also, it's a more personal experience and the guys have got more time for you and make you feel better as they seem to wind you up if your cool about it and if your bricking it (like one guy in our group was) they have all the time in the world for you.

Straight back into town after this for a quick turnaround to be taken out to the Fly-By-Wire site (another 4WD track on private land) Fly-By-Wire is an interesting Concept that I saw Jack Osbourne doing on TV last year and though I must have a go at that! It's basically a swing strung up between two hills, but at the bottom, instead of a seat there is a little plane without wings. It's been described as a go cart in the sky, but I would say it bears more ressemblance to a hovercraft and in fact uses many little leisure hovercraft parts including the fan and motor. So lying belly down, you begin the bizzare sensation of being whinched backwards up the hill to give you a head start. then when the whinch stops you pull the release trigger and the throttle on and off you go. So you get the pendulum going with more momentum and push yourself further and further up the valley, turning at the top to blast back down again. It is actually harder than it looks, especially when you've got gusts of wind blowing at you, it's best to get a feel for it and deside which way your going to turn when you get up there as turning into the wind renders you immobile. Once I'd got the hang of it I was having great fun and 5 minutes seemed to be over in a flash. One hell of a ride and I would recommend it to anyone visiting queenstown, if their not a wimp that is!

Worth pointing out that Jes happily stood and watched me from a sideline on all the activities as she is normally quite happy on firm ground. Apart from when she decides to do paragliding that is! Maybe my thrillseeking is rubbing off on her?

After finally managing to pull ourselves away from queenstown, we headed up to Wanaka, and to Puzzle World. The best part about this, was the sloping room which was a bit of a Head-F*ck! as things appeared to be running up hill and we kept bumping into things. Very strange. Also there was a big outdoor maze that we got lost in, and wished we'd taken more water in with us as it was very hot!