I have spent the last 7 days in Queenstown and I have to say, it has been a ton of fun. I hopped of with Hanni (Italian) and spent most of the days hanging out with her until she left and two other girls Joanne (Irish) and Claire (Brit) came into town. I have enjoyed spending time with these three girls and am happy to say that I will run into at least Joanne and Claire farther down the road. The weather has shifted to Fall temperatures. Most days have been sunny, but with a slight breeze and chill in the air. Nevertheless Queenstown is wonderfully beautiful and jam packed with tons of things to do. As I mentioned in the previous blog, you really have to watch yourself here because it sucks you in and before you know it you are doing things you never thought you would. With that being said let me get to the good stuff....
The first couple of days I took it easy just taking walks around the lake in the heart of Queenstown and wondering the streets. It has been nice staying put in a place for several days and not always having to pack your bags. Hanni and I met up pretty much everyday and we also went on some fun adventures. One of the first things we did as jump on a jet boat that takes your down the Kawanau and Shotover Rivers. This boat does 360 spins and flies down the river at an average speed of 50mph. It was quite thrill and as you could imagine the scenery was awesome as well. As you flew down the river you could here the small stones scraping the bottom of the boat because the water was so low. The amazing thing is that these boats can actually go across water as shallow as 4cm and believe me there were certainly some areas that were 4cm and slightly below. The driver would ride the edge of the water making you feel as if you were going to hit the large boulders or the bridge we went under. It was crazy. The whole ride lasted about and hour and it was a nice way to kick off our extreme adventures. A couple days later Hanni and I had decided on your next adventure, Canyoning. This is one of the things I had read about numerous times before coming here to New Zealand and it was a must do for me. For those of you who might not know what Canyoning is, you basically start at the top of the canyon and make your way through it by going down natural rock waterslides, jumping off of waterfalls, rapelling, and ziplining to the bottom. We checked in in the morning and hopped on the shuttle van that takes you an hour outside to Queenstown to the Routeburn Canyon. The road follows along the lake and constantly weaves. That on top of the crazy French guy who was driving was almost a thrill in itself. He was a bit insane, but we made it there in one piece luckily. As you could probably imagine the water was extremely cold so once again I had the pleasure of putting on a full body wet suit. Even though I hate them I am always extremely grateful for them at the end of the day. After gearing up we all hiked back about 30 minutes to the top of the canyon (yes, we were in the full body wet suits..).
Once at the top we encountered our first water slide. It wasn'lt large so it was a nice into to what we were getting ourselves into. The guide had us sit down, spun us so we were lying down backwards and pushed down the slide. At the bottom we were met with a freezing cold pool of water and you could't help, but smile and take another go at it. From there we climbed and rapelled deeper into the canyon. We jumped of a 7 meter high water fall down into a narrow pool and rode a few more slides along the way. In the end we ziplined to the finish. The whole experience was amazing and a ton of fun. I would love to do it again given the chance. Check out the photos/videos below of the action.
The next day two days were lazy days. Hanni had departed and Joanne and Claire had just come in. We all shared our stories of all the days we had been apart and had lots of laughs.
For my last day (today) I planned something that I said I would never ever do. In fact I believe the exact quote was "No way in hell!!" However, if there is anything I have learned in the past two years, it is that you have to go out of your comfort zone. You have to take a leap of faith and hope to hell it works out. Ok, I will stop rambling now and finally tell you what I did today. I went Bungy jumping off a 43meter high bridge!!!!!!
As much as I would like to say that it was easy for me and that I jumped without any hesitation. I simply cannot as it would be a lie. I knew it would be hard for me, but the feeling you get when they strap you into your harness and get you to the platform and it finally hits you what you are about to do, is terrifying. Quite honestly it was also a bit paralyzing. All I could think was "Holy Shit! I am an idiot. What am I doing!?!" My legs were shaking, my hand was clentched onto the bridge and all I could see was the water and rocks below and all around me. I wasn't afraid of dying or it hurting once I jumped, but I was terrified of not knowing how it would feel once I jumped. The fear of the unknown can be heavy burden and it was sitting on my shoulders like a boulder. Luckily the staff was well trained, very patient, and very good at talking me through it. After what seemed to be an eternity I finally let my body and mind go and just fell of the platform. It all happened so fast that I don't really remember anything after that other than screaming and a few choice curse words. By the time the guys had got me into the boat below my whole body was shaking from the adrenaline. My hands felt frozen and my brain was trying to process what the hell I had just done, but I was in the boat and I did it! For your entertainment there are photos and a video of the jump below. The video is about 4 minutes long and the first three minutes are me trying to muster up the courage to jump, so feel free to skip to the 3 minute mark. :)
This now brings me to current time. It is 11:00pm Monday night and I leave tomorrow for Omarama where I will be off the grid for a week or two, so the blog will be quiet for that period of time. With that being said I can assure you that I will have some great stories/pictures to share with you all when I get back to civilization.
Photo Links have been fixed:
Canyoning: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/39cuqjenyhu0u3i/NuG25ztanl
Bungy: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0ctnhefnr5ns1wi/df7Y8DvVvY
Cheers ,
Jenna
