Bungee
Trip Start
Nov 05, 2002
1
44
69
Trip End
Aug 13, 2003
Queenstown,
New Zealand
Sunday, June 1, 2003
A nice ski/party town on the banks of Lake Wakatipu this is the adrenaline junkie capital of New Zealand. It has it all on offer to those who have the combination of cash and few brain cells. Skiing, bungee jumping, jet boating, white water rafting, sky diving, heli-trekking etc. As the home of the modern day bungee jump, coming to New Zealand, and Queenstown in particular, without doing a jump is like coming to Ireland and not having a Guinness (whoops, apologies. A bad analogy I know!). So today I lost all reason and did a bungee jump from the Skyline, a hill overlooking Queenstown and from where the views of the surrounding landscape are amazing (another reason for picking this bungee jump over the others on offer in the area). Although not the biggest of the jumps around it was certainly an amazing buzz. Trying to explain a bungee to someone who hasn't done one is very hard. Maybe impossible. It's weird standing on the platform getting ready to throw yourself off the edge because, unless you're seriously **cked up, it's not something humans instinctively do. It's totally against our nature of self-preservation. Thus a lot of unfamiliar and mixed up emotions go through your head at that moment. I'm sure everyone experiences a jump differently but for me the few seconds I was falling, under gravity, to the ground I though I was gonna die. Honestly. That was it for me. The ground was approaching at rapid speed and there was nothing to stop me; you totally forget about the cord attached to your feet and when when it eventually springs into life and tosses you around you realise you're actually not going to die. Then, with that realisation, comes the emotion of relief. That, I think, is the reason for 90% of the howls you hear from bungee jumpers; the other 10% is them just enjoying the experience once they realise they are not going to die! We'll that's how it was for me anyway. Ha.... the whole experience is something I'm looking forward to doing again, this time on a bigger, less wussy jump.
As for Queenstown itself. We again are staying in a nice YHA hostel (certainly getting use from our YHA cards) and enjoying the nightlife and general buzz about the place. The ski season is approaching and the town is awaiting the first big snow of the season. Yesterday I did a tour of the local sights/locations used in the Lord Of The Rings films and even purchased a book showing various locations used throughout the whole country. It'll be interesting to see how many of them I get to see before we leave New Zealand although I reckon B might have a word or two to say about chasing Lord Of The Rings location sites!
Today, after 3 nights here, we'll be hiring a car for four days to tour the Catlins area, a rugged and scenic wildlife area at the extreme south of the island, and Milford Sound, the most famous of New Zealand's fiords in the southwest Fiordland, before getting back to Queenstown to begin our trip north along the west coast.
Will keep you all update on our adventure so make sure to check back in.
Until then.
Dave and B
