Queenstown - money for old rope

After Wanaka we headed further South again to a place called Queenstown. This is the adventure sport capital of the world with bungy jumps, canyon swings, snowboarding, jet boating, rafting and a whole lot more besides. About fifteen minutes outside the town we called into the home of the bungy - Kawarau Bridge. This is where the bungy pioneer AJ Hackett opened the worlds first commercial bungy site. At only 43m high we decided to hold out for Nevis. Interestingly AJ Hackett was once arrested in Paris.......for bungying off the Eiffel Tower no less! Queenstown is the kind of place you´ll visit and never leave. The mountain range in the background of the bus photo are called the Remarkables because they are, as the name suggests, quite remarkable. This was to be the end of the line for the bus as some people would be staying for longer than others. As you can see we had quite a good crew even if Mark is being slowly crushed to death at the bottom of the pile on.
Our first activity in Queenstown was Nevis. Nevis is the world´s third largest bungy where it is suspended 134m over a gorge. The freefall lasts about eight seconds and you reach speeds of about 150 km/h. In fairness to Kevin Ed he was the first one up and set the tone for everyone else. Listening to his eh....shouts of joy you wouldn´t be so sure he enjoyed it though! I could be here all day trying to describe it so I´ll just let the videos do the talking.




It wouldn´t be my blog if there wasn´t a mention of food and Queenstown boasts one of the world´s premier burger joints - Fergburger. This is no ordinary burger let me assure you. There is a Big Al option which Mark, Darragh and Kevin ate. This has a half pound of beef with two fried eggs, lettuce, tomato, red onion, edam cheese, streaky bacon and beetroot. Darragh ate it in less than 7 minutes so kudos to him. Mick and I stuck to the more conventional option. (For some reason they didn´t give me a free burger for this shameless plug. Just to note that we are open to bribes, especially if they look like this)The canyon swing was our next big thrill. This is a swing 109m above the Shotover canyon. There is a 60m freefall along the cliff face followed by the swing out over the canyon. Again you get up to about 150 km/h so it´s not for the faint hearted. One of the guys on the bus, Darren, had won a free canyon swing for the penguin costume at the fancy dress. When the operators found this out he was denied the choice of jump style (backwards, forwards, upside down etc) and was strapped into a chair, shocked with a cattle prod and thrown off the platform! Mick opted for the pin drop while I went for the backwards option.In keeping with our new found desire for self harm we went skiing / snowboarding the next day at Coronet Peak. It was rather icy to say the least and this provided the locals with some spectacular falls most notably from Darragh "Bambi on Ice" O´Keeffe. We got better as the day went on and finished up on the black slopes (this may have been after a wrong turn). In fairness we didn´t pack ski gear but some of the fashion choices were interesting to say the least!
We had a day off from the madness then as some of the bus headed off for Milford Sound while we got our lives in order and sorted out our impending trip to Christchurch and then Santiago, Chile. The big send off occurred in the World bar as we said our goodbyes to everyone. A big shout out to all the bus who included (deep breath) Darren, Alpine Rob, Army Rob, Sam, Hoki, Phil, Shane, Smiley, Jizzy, Deena, Nat, Kim and Lee, Georgina, Becky, Nicki, Christian, Alex, Brian, John, Katie and Claire, Bart, Holly, Marian, Pickpocket Pete, Kimberly, Francesca, Simon, Graeme and the two Charlottes (we seem so popular don´t we). Take it from us - the Kiwi Experience is definitely the best and most fun/crazy way to see New Zealand.

Now.......where did I put those Spanish tapes???