The Adventure Capital of the World

Queenstown, New Zealand. Oh, Queenstown.

Everyone talks about Queenstown when you are in New Zealand and how much fun it is. It was hyped up a ton and frankly, it lives up to the hype. Every night here is like a Saturday night and is probably the best "party" city I've been to outside of Vegas. The home of bungy jumping has to have a serious nightlife right?

On the way into Queenstown from Wanaka we first stopped at Puzzling World which is just a giant puzzle. Slanted rooms, crazy mirrors, and all sorts of tricks to make you feel really dizzy. They have an Ames room there, which is a distorted room that makes people appear to be giants or tiny, if you've seen Lord of the Rings it is the technique they used to make the hobbits seem tiny. When you look at the room it looks perfectly normal, but the people inside look to be dramatically different in size, they do this by changing the ceiling height and angling the walls to make the perspective change......or something like that, I'm not really sure but it was cool to see.

About an hour down the road we got to the historic Kawarau Bridge, the home of bungy jumping. It was the first commercial site in the world and opened in 1988. The jump is over a river and you can do the classic "water" touch into the river below. We watched a movie on the "secrets" of bungy and they showed us how the latex cords are made. Of the 50 people on the buss, only 2 decided to jump....I was one of them. The bridge isn't the highest bungy in New Zealand, it is only 43m (or 145ft) but it was an intense and a lot of fun. I jumped without a shirt for the ladies and to keep my clothes dry for the water touch. I got a DVD of it and pictures that I'll post in a later post dedicated solely to the jumps.

Upon arriving in Queenstown your Kiwi bus takes a group photo over the lake with the Remarkables (mountain range) in the background. The Remarkables are aptly named as they are rather remarkable. The entire town of Queenstown is screaming with beauty to be honest.

From Queenstown I took a tour of the Milford Sound which is a 4 hour drive out of town. I've seen a lot of beautiful things in the past couple years.....the Rockies, Sierras, National parks of Utah, Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone, the Himalayas, etc.....and can honestly say that the Milford Sound tops them all. It was breathtaking in scale and beauty and we went on a day when there wasn't a single cloud in the sky....that happens about a dozen times a year we were told. I have often said that pictures don't do scenery justice, but I actually mean it about this place. 2,000m peaks shoot up out of the ocean in all directions with immaculate waterfalls cascading down their slopes. A trip to New Zealand without going here would be like a trip to Egypt without going to the pyramids, I can't begin to describe how amazing it was. It was so nice I went twice actually.

Then came the mountain biking, a disaster waiting to happen. I can't confirm if the water spins the other way in toilets because the toilets flush with water shooting everywhere here, but I can tell you that the brakes on bikes are backwards here. Left brake is the rear, right is the front. Great.....that made me flip at least twice, the other crash, well I can blame it on the brakes but I kinda just lost it and flipped over backwards going up this rock/stump thing. It was great fun though and I ended up covered in mud by the end of it, obviously it was amazing.

The next day I rented a car and braved driving on the wrong side of the road and from the wrong side of the car. This country is backwards. Drove up to do a day walk on the Routeburn Track which is one of the most Great Walks in NZ. I went up to Conical Hill for some panoramic shots of the southern Alps and the hike, although it took 8 hours, was insanely nice.

But you can't come to the adventure capital of the world and home of bungy without going big, so I signed up for the Nevis High Wire, the 2nd highest bungy jump in the world. Falling out of a cable car suspended over a canyon is amazing. It was a 134m or 440foot drop. You are falling for a total of 8.5 seconds. Think about that for a second. Sing the intro the Beatles song "Help".....Help! I need somebody. Help! Not just anybody. Help! you know I need someone. Helpppp! That is 8 seconds long and you are falling for the entire time. I thought the bridge was a little scary, but the freefall on this one is 3 times higher and you pick up a LOT of speed. My first thought after the jump...shit, what did I just do, the next thought, this is AWESOME. Then reality started to hit me that the ground was coming at my face awfully quickly before feeling the cord gradually slow me down. I have a DVD of my jump but if you'd care to see what it look like watch this youtube video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIzZJSvKPqw

In all honestly it was one of the most fun things I have ever done. The feeling is impossible to describe but I never had imagined something could possibly be so much fun.