Adventure Capitol of the World

We got to sleep in until 7 am today since our bungy jump was scheduled for 9:30 am. After having another delicious peanut butter and homemade strawberry jam sandwich for breakfast, we drove out over the mountains towards Queenstown. Megan was pretty nervous about bungy jumping and had told me that she would only do it if we could jump together. Once she told me that, I went ahead and reserved a time for the Kawarau Bridge bungy because that was one of the only places that let you do a tandem jump. Once we got there and were checking in, the woman convinced Megan to do it on her own since it is more of a challenge. After they weighed us and wrote our weights on our hands, we were off to the top of the bridge to jump.

We left our car keys and sandals on top of the bridge and then got into our harnesses. Then we had a few minutes to wait in line as there were 3 or 4 people ahead of us on the bridge. It was pretty windy and cold on top of the bridge and it made me glad I hadn't changed into shorts. When it was my turn then had me sit down at a lower platform that was thankfully sheltered from the wind. They wrap your legs together and then attach a cord from your legs to the bungy rope and a cord from your harness to the bungy rope. Then you waddle out to the edge where they count you down and then you are off.

It was awesome! I wanted to screaming "boost it" when I jumped but you are falling so fast that I ended up just yelling. You are going so fast it kind of takes your breath away. The sensation of speed is amazing. I had time to look down and around some before I hit the water. They had talked me into dunking my head. Unfortunately I jumped out and up instead of diving so I dunked even further then they intended. Luckily even though it was a somewhat chilly day, the sun was out and my shirt dried pretty quickly. I hastened up to the viewing platform so I could see Megan's jump.

Megan glanced over and then boosted her jump. From the way I saw it she did fine but she told me later that when they were moving her out, she told the guy she couldn't do it. The guy told her he'd count down from 5 and in her head she went I CAN DO THIS. Then when he got to 3, she decided she had to jump before he finished the countdown or she'd freeze, so she started jumping at 2.

After our bungy jumps, we got suckered into buying the pictures and DVDs (how many times are you going to go bungy jumping? don't you want documentation?). We picked them up and then headed on into Queenstown. On the way, we saw Amisfield winery and decided to take a quick wine tasting stop. We liked their wines and the guy pouring was form Chicago and talked to us a lot about how New Zealand wines differed from Napa and other areas in the states. We liked the wines and told the guy that we thought they were similar to Cakebread's wines. He laughed and said that the owner of Cakebread also owns Amisfield. Booyah to our ability to taste wines!

We drove into Queenstown proper and parked and headed in to an activities center. We didn't have anything booked until 5 pm so we wanted to see what other options there were. We decided we were going to go jet boating. We had done it once before in the North Island but we really enjoyed it and figured we'd give it another try. We had a few mishaps driving out to the location, but we ended up getting there in time still. This time was way more awesome than the time in the North Island. The boat went flying off at around 80 kph. They went through some really tight areas with rock cliffs on either side. They also drift through turns and pull 360s a lot.

After jet boating, we took a break from extreme activities and drove out to Arrowtown. It is a tiny village that has a lot of the historic store fronts and museums. We wandered around town. There was a self guided tour but they neglected to mention that you had to get keys to a lot of the places on the tour from the museum. We had already walked 15 minutes from the town center and we didn't have the heart to go back. It was really hot that day so we just walked to the various historic buildings. We lucked out at some of them because other people were there and got to go and see them. We then headed back into town and got some ice cream to cool off.


There was a fairly big Chinese population in Arrowtown during the gold rush days. The people of Arrowtown forced them to live in a separate portion of the village. While all the houses in Arrowtown were small, the Chinese houses would better be described as hovels. Some of them were 20 square feet and were set up like a lean to. It is amazing to me that they could live in such squalor.

We then headed back into Queenstown to the Skyline Gondola. We had booked luge rides and a dinner at the top. We took the gondola up. I can see why they have the dinner area where they do as it overlooks all of Queenstown and Lake Waktipu. We went up to the luge and decided that we would ride together the first time and then alternate luge rides so that we could take pictures of each other. We had hoped it was going to be real luge, but it was actually carts on wheels. It was still cool though. They bicycle style steering and you could actually get going dangerously fast. There are two courses, the scenic course and the ADVANCED course. We were planning on just doing the advanced course twice but they told us that your first ride of the day has to be the scenic course.

We got in and rode down together and then walked back up to plan out where we would get pictures of each other on the next run. I luged first and Megan took some pictures and video. Then I took the chairlift up and we swapped the camera so that she could go on her run. After our luge rides we headed into the dining area and got a drink while we waited for our seating time. It pays to check in as soon as you can because they seat you in order of check in. Since we were awesome and checked in first, they gave us the best seat in the house.


It had an okay view I guess. Best of all, we could each look outside instead of looking at each other. Since it was our honeymoon, they gave us complimentary champagne and then we started working on the buffet. There were tons of stations but we walked through the whole buffet to figure out our plan. In standard "eat for the cycle" form I decided I would have to eat a small portion of everything. I failed big time. There were two soups, 10 different fish dishes, 5 main courses and 5 sides, a big cheese, fruit and cracker plate, and an enormous dessert setup with ice cream and tons of small pastries and large cakes. The lamb and chicken main courses and the prawn sides were my favorites. What boggled our minds was how rude other patrons were at the buffet. While Megan was ladling soup into her bowl a woman pushed her way in front of her and was going to scoop her bowl into the soup. The worst was when we were getting cheese, a woman pushed her way in front of Megan and grabbed an enormous clump of grapes. It probably had about 200 grapes on it and she walked away with the whole thing. While we were shocked by what happened, a second woman pushed in and took the other grape clump! It was absurd. Luckily even though we weren't pushy we managed to get more than enough to eat and were thoroughly stuffed by the time we took the gondola back down to our car. After driving over the mountain once again, we were back home.