 |
| Queenstown |
Queenstown is like Vail mixed with San Diego with a bit of Napa thrown in. It is a picturesque town built in the backdrop of Lake Wakitipu and huge thundering mountains that jut up around its edges. Picture Lake Tahoe. The town is Vail village meets backpacker heaven. Real estate retail locations hawk $US2 million homes in and around the city, while next door, $1 beers are being served to 19 year old Brazilians. It’s also the world reknown extreme sports capital of the world. This is where AJ Hackett created Bungi and its home to the second largest bungi jump in the world, the Nevis. 440 feet.
Surrounding the city are some of the world’s best hikes, and as with the whole country, if it stands still or can have a bit of a platform, they jump from it.
We got here on Sunday night. Glenn complained and got our OK room upgraded to a mack-daddy room. Go Glenn. /We met Cornelia, a German who is spending 6 months in Queenstown who told us the lay of the land. She told us to avoid Altitude and World Bar, since those are the tourist hangouts, but we ignored her advice and went. Altitude was all that a backpacker bar should be. Big trips like Kiwi Adventure, stacked with 18-35, but really 18-24 years pack in to the hostil above at night and party in the bar in the evening. I alternated between feeling like a 20 year old again and feeling like I was babysitting. However, except for Karaoke night which got too annoying to stand, it was a blast. I met Naomi, a cute brunette from California, who I who was also on the Kiwi Adventures.
The second night I met a Brazilian girl named Gissella, She was traveling for a year having quit her job with American Express marketing in Sao Paulo. She had already spent 6 months in Paris learning French and traveling Europe. Now she was spending 3 months traveling New Zealand and Australia and would return to Brazil and start looking for a job. In dozens of conversations with people like this, I have seen the normalcy and regularity by which people take off, travel and, if not find themselves, discover more about life and their own lives.
We did Queenstown right. On Monday morning, we woke up and went to “The Station” and signed up for the Kurawu Bridge Bunge, the first Bunge site, and the one that let’s you dunk in the water. It’s the “small jump” - we had to get psyched up for the big one later. We were lucky when we got to the sign up place, because they had a slot in 1 hour open. Just enough time to grab a bite to eat and drive out to the site, leaving no time to think about it. We got out to the site just in time, weighed in (at 76 KGs, which they write big on your hand – no messing up persons) Like almost all operations in NZ, this place is a fun factory with precision in how they do everything. Nothing is left to chance.
The jump is 140 feet over a the shotover river and was built originally to transport gold miners in the 1860’s to their sought after treasures. For the last 20 years, it has been the world’s center of Bunji mania. The observation deck alone is crowded with Asian tourists photographing random’s doing a brave thing: Jumping off a 15 story building and hoping they don’t die.
Looking out over the bridge for the first time is frightening, but I had already calmed myself down and hyped myself up, so I was more excited than anything else. I walked out onto the plank, 140 feet above running water and then it starts to really get scary. They strapped on the harness and the wrapped my legs in a towel and attached the bunge rope, a mere three feet from the edge. I stood up and hobbled, with their help to the edge with the Kiwi guide telling me to jump out, face the far rocks. I waved to the camera, waved to the crowd and then, with a calm center but edgy with fear, dove out towards the rocks and began falling.
The first thing I saw was the green of the water. Then a strong sinking feeling came into my stomach and I started to fall. I screamed, more to get rid of the feeling in my stomach than out of real mind-numbing fear. I was feeling each one of the 3-4 seconds of free-fall. Seeing the rocks and water come closer, but acutely aware of the fact that I was doing this. Closing in on the water now – tuck head, stretch arms…..Splash. My arms, head and upper torso dip into the water – cold, refreshing, startling. I am overcome by a complete euphoria. Then quickly retreat and I am airborne again - up, feet first, then down and up again. Finally, I come to a stop and the boat picks me. I say to myself – time to do Nevis.
Nevis is a different jump altogether. 440 feet, you launch from a station suspended across a rivene by wires. You get to the station by a gondola, which seems precarious at best. The scariest part was almost the drive up to the point, up a one lane dirt road that skims the side of the mountain and you keep thinking: “How high does this go?” The station is fairly solid, but is some of the floor is made out of glass, so you can see the huge fall below. Twenty of us were in the group. Some were obviously scared shitless and some were relatively calm. I vascilated between the two. I had been pretty scared before we got there, but once I actually saw the height exactly, though high, I could compared it to the Bridge jump two days before and have a starting point the rationalize the activity. I meditated and calmed myself. By the time it was my turn, I was excited inside, but not outright scared. They harnessed me up, showed me how to right myself for the pull up (no boat to pick you up from the water, they pull you back up after the jump) and then got me to the ledge.
I looked down to see a deep ravine, with a small river in it. Rocky hills rolling up on both sides. You could barely see the white waves from the moving water. The guide started the count down and when he hit 1, I jumped, instantly feeling the sinking feeling. I screamed. But unlike the other jump, this jump kept going. Four seconds in, it seems like an eternity and you are still accelerating. Finally, you feel a sense of slowing down and then being pulled up. But, its disorienting, and you are not sure where in the trajectory you are. At the top of the arch, you feel absolutely weightless. Its amazing! And it stays that way, for 2-3 seconds, and then you are falling again. After the second rise, you pull a string and you get “righted”, so they can pull you up while you are sitting in a cradle. Even more than the first time, this was an absolutely amazing experience. To remember it, I bought the video.
We Also went to do the Shotover Jets – not bungee, but not too shabby either. These boats went at nearly 60 miles an hour down very tight river passes, going within incheas of jutting rocks and then spun around giving everybody strong thrills, if not sea sickness. Very entertaining.
The Second day, we put on our hiking shoes (in my case, just donned the now famous Uni-Shoe that “works during the day, and parties at night”), and Glenn and I headed to Routeburn trail, one of the top 10 scenic trails in the world. When we got there, we found 10 Israeli’s – locked out of their car. Though it’s a 34 km hike around, and some people stay the night at a camp site half-way throough, we did the 10 km hike to the first stop, an amazing hike, at a very hefty pace. It was a path hike, mostly easy grades, sloping up. Very green, with majestic rapids running below wood bridges. When we arrived, the plateau was very scenic, but the bugs were buggers, resting there we got bit up. Nothing ever is perfect. The hike back was relaxing.
No comments:
Post a Comment