Bungy Jumping In Queenstown
Queenstown is the Southern Hemisphere’s premier four season lake and alpine resort. Surrounded by majestic mountains and nestled on the shores of crystal clear Lake Wakatipu, Queenstown’s stunning scenery is inspiring and revitalizing. With such a huge range of activities in Queenstown, no two days will ever be the same.
Queenstown is the place to go for all sorts of activities - skiing, kayaking, rafting, four wheeling, jet boating, paragliding, skydiving, and the list goes on and on. Arguably, it is most famous for its bungy (or bunjee) jumping history playing home to the original setup at the Kawarau bridge as well as the world's third highest bungy setup (134 meters/440 feet) at Nevis canyon. I decided to give the later one a try and left Te Anau for a quick couple hour drive to Queenstown. In addition to Merle (one of German hitchhikers I picked up on the way to Te Anau), Andi and Fishy from Borneo joined us for the ride and after dropping them off at their hostels, I settled into Adventure Queenstown.
Nevis Bungy Jump
Next morning, I showed up at the AJ Hackett store half an hour before my departure time, got weighted and hung around until the mini bus picked us up. It took us about 40 minutes to reach the Nevis canyon and I wished I would of brought my headphones with me as there was no music on the bus to help kill the time. I was not sure if I could bring my daypack with me with some food and water since there was not much information about the actual jump site. As it turned out, they had another building set up there (with $1 lockers) in addition to the suspended platform from which we were to jump.
With our safety harness on, we got weighted again, and off we went to the platform with three other guys. I was the lucky first one to jump and kept expecting to get a briefing on what to do, but the only instructions we were given is how to pull the cord that would put us in a sitting position for the ride back up and to do a belly flop when we jump. That's it… Still a bit confused, I was walked over to the edge of the platform and before I could thing of anything, they started counting down 3… 2… 1… and I figured it was too late to ask any questions anyway so off I went.
The free fall lasts about eight seconds so before my brain could really register what happened, I was already on the way up. So, unlike skydiving, I really do not have a conscious recollection of what happened or how I felt when I rushing towards the ground. The ride back up took a bit longer and only at that point did I really start feeling queazy looking down, but soon I was being pulled back onto the platform and it was all over. I guess I would have to try the highest bungy in Maccau at twice the height of Nevis…
Back at the shop, I got my photos and video DVD and was a bit surprised to see a pretty low quality and resolution video. With most other activities producing full 1080p material, $80 for this felt as a bit of a rip off. On the positive note, they had a few desktops available for use while waiting for the minibus ride back to town, so I was able to upload one of the pictures to Facebook before leaving.
Big Al @ Fergburger
Another staple of Queenstown is the Fergburger burger joint. The Big Al burger is the one to be had and it was definitely the most delicious burger of all I have had. It did come at a steep $17 price and an hour or so wait (for a burger!). While waiting for it, I strolled around town for a bit with my new dorm mates and it definitely had a tourist trap feeling to it, albeit a nice one (think Aspen, not WIsconsin Dells).
