So There I Was…

They call Queenstown the adventure capital of New Zealand, and for good reason. Queenstown is a lakeside resort town set in the midst of the mountain range known as the Remarkables. Every third shop in town is an adventure shop, hawking everything from rafting trips, cruises, jet boats, winery tours, skydiving, caving, river boarding, canyon swings, nature tours, and of course, bungy jumping. (Queenstown was the site of the world’s first commercial bungy jump.)

I arrived in Queenstown on Thursday evening, after a long ride from Franz Josef on the Magic Bus. The west coast scenery is stunning (as is almost all of New Zealand) From Franz Josef we followed the coast down a ways, and then headed inland toward Queenstown. The scenery inland is quite different from the coast, as you leave the rainforest and head over to the other side of the mountains where it is much drier. There are lots and lots of lakes, and most of them are very dark in color and are called “mirror” lakes because the surface is so reflective. The dark color comes from tannin which is carried into the lakes from the water running off the mountains. The tannin is the same substance which gives tea it’s brown color, and I suppose it’s also the same tannin found in red wine.

One of the things I find funny here is that there are a lot of deer parks. Just as you would see a field full of cattle or horses, they also have fenced in areas with deer. One park I passed had probably a couple of hundred deer. And for a small fee, you can actuallly go on a bus tour of the deer park. That seems so funny to me since in Oregon the deer run wild and are hunted for food and sport. But I have to admit, it was cool to see all of those deer in one place.

Thursday night a group of us that had ridden the Magic Bus down the coast got together at the pub for drinks. Most of the bars around here cater to the backpacking crowd with drink specials and giveaways. At one bar called The World Bar, it was pasta night, and we got a good pasta dinner for only $5. Another place called the Red Rock gave away a free skydive to one lucky girl, and we were given drink vouchers as well and got 2 for 1 beers. After the Red Rock we went back to the World Bar where the DJ had started playing music and we danced until about 2:30 AM. I had to call it quits early though as I had a 6:30 AM bus to catch to take me out to Doubtful Sound.

After about 3 hours of sleep on Friday morning, I boarded the bus for my tour of Doubtful Sound. Doubtful Sound is not actually a sound, but is a fiord (created by moving glaciers), and is located in Fiordland National Park. The trip out to the sound and back was quite good. After boarding the bus, we traveled to Lake Manapouri where we boarded a boat for a trip across the lake. Once we arrived at the other side of the lake we got off the boat and boarded another bus for a trip up and over Wilmot Pass and down to Deep Cove where we boarded another large boat for the cruise around the sound.

Lake Manapouri is the site of a very large power station, most of which is located 175 meters below lake level. About 85% of the power generated here is used by the Comalco Aluminun Smelter, located about 170 kilometers away (106 miles) in a town called Bluff. When plans for the power station were first being developed, they called for the level of the lake to be raised significantly. But the public opposed the idea and sent a petition to the NZ government who intervened and helped to create the power station underground where the impact to the lake would be minimized. Access to the power station is via a 2KM long spiral tunnel. Before crossing over Wilmot pass, our bus was able to drive down into the tunnel and see the power station.

Once we viewed the power station and crossed the pass, we journeyed out into the fiord. It was really amazing to see the large valleys that had been carved into the earth by the glaciers. The distance from Deep Cove to the Tasman Sea is 40 KM, making it the second longest fiord in New Zealand. At it’s deepest point the water is 430 meters deep. The sound is home to lots of wildlife, including a pod of about 60 bottlenose dolphins. Also in the sound are fur seals and penguins. Doubtful Sound is also home to one of two marine reserves in Fiordland. In the reserve you are not allowed to do anything to the water except dive in it, and dive boats have to tie off their boats to a rope running down one side of the reserve. They are not allowed to drop anchor because the anchor will disturb the floor of the fiord. We spent about 3 hours travelling out to the Tasman sea and back, then it was back on the bus to go back over the pass, and then back across the lake and back into Queenstown. The entire tour took about 13 hours, and was quite good overall.

I slept quite well on Friday night, and then got up on yesterday (Saturday) ready to do some more bungy jumping. I had three jumps planned for the day: Kawarau Bridge, a 43 meter drop into the river below; Nevis Highwire, a 134 meter drop from a cable car; and The Ledge, a 47 meter drop from atop the hill overlooking Queenstown. First up was the Kawarau Bridge. I checked in at the bungy center downtown, and we boarded a bus for the 20 minute ride out to the bridge. There were about 10 of us going out to Kawarau, and once we got there We weighed in and got fitted up in our harness to take our turn at the jump. Since I had already jumped once in Taupo, the idea of doing a basic jump seemed pretty boring. So I decided to kick it up a notch and attempt a backwards somersault off the platform. I pulled it off pretty well, and even got a bit of a dunking in the river. It was awesome! After drying off and changing my shirt, we got back on the bus and headed up to the big one. The ride up to Nevis was up in the hills and the drop looked pretty freaky. We went through the same routine, getting fitted in our harnesses and weighing in. Then it was onto the cable car for the ride out to the platform. I was probably the third or fourth in our group to go, and I was pumped up. We weren’t allowed to do any tricks off the platform at Nevis, so I just went for the basic swan dive. But it was enough. Once I left the platform, my stomach was in my throat and it was around a six second fall before the bungy caught. It was absolutely awesome. I think the best part of all the jumps is the bouncing around on the bungy after the cord catches you.

After Nevis, I thought going back to the Ledge would be kind of anti-climatic. But it turns out that you can jump the Ledge at night. So I rebooked that jump for the evening instead of the afternoon. That gave me some time to relax, so I picked up a pizza and headed back to the backpackers to get cleaned up and put on some dry clothes since my jeans were still wet from the bridge jump. I headed up to the Ledge about 6:00, just as it was starting to get dark. After going through the routine one again, I was ready to take one last leap. The Ledge is different than the others in that the bungy attaches to a body harness instead of to your ankles. The advatage of this is that your ankles are free and you can get a running start. 🙂 So I took of running and executed a near-perfect front flip off the ledge. It was pretty flippin cool. After that last jump I had a high that wasn’t going to be easily topped. I opted not to hit the pub last night, and had a quiet night at the backpackers instead.

Now I’m on the bus to Dunedin, where I’ll meet my friends Kevin and Milyn and vist them for a week. I’m looking forward to staying in one spot for a little while, although as some of my friends will attest, life with the Lefohns is always an adventure. 🙂 While there, I’ll try and plan some of my next month of travel. All I really know at this point is that I’m going to fly to Melbourne on the 26th and try and get up to Indonesia and SE Asia a couple of weeks after that.

Franz Josef, Lake Matheson, and scenery on the way to Queenstown

Pub Night!

New Zealand’s Finest

Lake Manapouri

Looking for Dr. Evil (at the Manapouri Power Station)

Top of Wilmot Pass

Doubtful Sound

Dolphins

Lake Manapouri in the evening

Tags: Bungy Jumping, New Zealand, Photos, Queenstown, Travel, Tag Index

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 16th, 2006 at 10:41 am and is filed under Photos, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.