Queenstown - 8th Feb

We continued our journey towards Queenstown. Before you reach Queenstown, there’s a right turn to a bridge over a beautifully blue gorge – this is where A J Hackett’s famous bungee is done from.  The building is huge as you enter a spiral staircase that brings you down to a massive shop and a big cinema screen which shows you the different jumps that A J Hackett did around the world before bringing the Bungee experience to New Zealand. They have 5 other sites and varieties of doing the Bungee around the Queenstown area. You can jump and have the chance to do spins, 360 rolls whilst you’re in midair! We were fascinated but had already considered a Skydive and knew that was going to break the back a bit. We stayed to take a few snaps of people taking the big leap and continued on the beautiful mountainous drive towards the city.

After parking up we walked straight in to the Skydive booking office (a company called NZONE that we already seen running Skydives in Rotorua earlier in the trip); both of us very nervous but excited at the same time. We booked it at 11.30am for a 12.30 jump!! Crazy! We hadn’t eaten anything yet so we ran over to Subway and demolished the best sandwich, with the nicest tasting, much needed salad ever!! Then to sign our lives away, pay another bulk of dollar for the photo package and then on to the bus to the ‘dropzone’. When we arrived, our names were called out first so we walked over to get our suits on, hats and glasses and harnesses put on. We personally met our photographer and ‘jump master’. Gav’s was called Steve and mine was called Jeff. Jeff was busy eating noodles when we arrived and so every time someone walked passed me (harnessless), they said ‘Jeff won’t be long, he likes to take his time’ – he was a legend in the end – everyone was teasing him saying that he had to do our briefing and every time he started with the same old script, they all started laughing saying that we had already been briefed (we hadn’t).  It was a good fun atmosphere. After jumping in to the very small plane in a ‘oops upside ya head’ style line, we set off in to the sky. We circled for a while once we reached 9,000 feet because there was a plane taking off from the main airport so we had to wait for the ‘all go’. A Chinese girl was first and Amanda second – Gav watched Amanda leave the plane – Gav wasn’t far behind!

Strapped up tightly to our ‘jump master’ you sat on the edge of the plane, wind blasting so loud, and you were told to put your head back and tuck your feet under the step outside and locked together, holding the straps on your front.  Gav said that he felt quite cold at this point but body temperature was the last thing on Amanda’s mind funnily enough! The ‘jump master’ did everything so you had no choice whether to jump or not by that point! He rocked you 3 times and suddenly the 30 second freefall began! The best feeling ever – pure excitement and adrenaline rush! After 3 taps on the shoulders you get your arms out (in breaststroke style – thanks for that description Gordon) – they said you need to look like banana not a pineapple!  

When the parachute goes out, you feel quite a jolt and it takes a couple of seconds to remember that you do actually need a parachute – this happened at 6,000 feet from ground level and it suddenly goes silent.  Your photographer keeps falling fast down to the ground after getting some great shots.

 The scenery was unbelievable – absolutely stunning! At this point you get a tour of the landmarks and it doesn’t quite feel that you’re in the air, wierdly. There is a huge mountain range called ‘The Remarkables” with peaks over 2300m which were used quite a lot in the Lord of the Rings. To fall towards them and see them from a parachute was just amazing! Mand got to steer the parachute for a bit which was wicked. Before you’re ready, you start to prepare for landing – feet outstretched and smiling to the photographer again! The feeling of elations takes over and you just want to run around and hug everyone (Mand wanted to anyway!). We got a photo of us together after surviving too! Fantastico!

We got the bus back to town, and got ourselves a celebratory ice cream – don’t really think we needed the sugar rush but it made us sit for 10 minutes and calm down a bit! We took in the town centre of Queenstown (including the lovely harbour and pretty shops) and then found a cheap campsite (£3.50 each a night!) with just a toilet, and right on your doorstep of Lake Wakatipu. It was lovely – we sat on a couple of rocks feeling like the luckiest people in the world as the sunset. 

The adrenaline had worn off by this point so we both fell asleep straight away. Amanda kept dreaming about the jump and waking up!