February 27, 2011

Bungy jump and other adrenaline inducing activities

After breakfast and answering a few emails on our free 30 minutes of Wifi, we headed into town with the purpose of taking the gondola to the top of the hill above the town. We paid our fee of $50 and up we went in the typical 4-person ski gondola. The mountainside was very steep and covered with fir trees. The view across the lake and to the mountains on the other side was muted by the overcast, with sunshine peaking through the thin cloud layer here and there. Upon reaching the top and after passing a bungy jumping tower and the swing tower, we were greeted with signs for bungy jumping, paragliding, luge running (on pavement in little gocart vehicles no less). Bikers had ridden up before us with their bikes and presumably were going to ride down this very steep hill. We went out onto the viewing deck and took a bunch of pictures. We watched a young girl jump off the bungy tower, heard a scream, and then it was over, just like that. That’s it. That’s all there is. You jump. You scream. For $179.

As we were marveling at the view of the town, I heard something and looked up. There were two persons tandem paragliding about 30 feet over the building and 1500 feet above the ground. Click, click, click, click. More and more pictures. And more and more paragliders came whistling by. During a lull, we headed uphill, past the paraglider booth, and past the paved luge tracks, to the top of the chairlift where we grabbed a seat at a picnic table. On the small field next to our table, a paraglider was laying out his “flag”, strapping on, and then start walking then running for the cliff at the end of the 15-yard field. The flag came off the ground. He ran faster and he was off, first descending and then climbing in a thermal, round and round as he rode the thermal to a hundred feet above his takeoff point, finally coming back and landing in the very same spot.
“I would like to do that.:”

My turn

And down the hill I went, to the paragliding hut of G-Force. I signed up, they weighed me, wrote my weight on the back of my right hand in red magic marker, and then was introduced to Shane who would be my pilot. Shane is about 40, balding, with white hair on the lower part of the back of his head, about 6’ 1” , handsome and looking in good shape. He grabbed his 50 lb backpack and we headed back up the hill, past Sugar who wanted a “goodbye” kiss as Shane was telling me to “follow those guys”, indicating two others about 40 feet ahead of me. Up and up we climbed on a dirt road. Shane went by on a four-wheeler with his backpack. We continued, 5 minutes, 10 minutes straight up and finally and just in time for me, came out of the woods to a broad ridge, with dropoffs of several thousand feet on each side. I found a seat and watched as others readied their flags, instructed their clients and then literally ran off the cliffside, which wasn’t really a cliff, just a very steep mountainside, maybe like the headwall at Sugarloaf. After a few minutes, it was our turn. Shane asked me to go down the hill four or five meters. I did as he asked, standing there looking out over the edge, wondering where I could land if all went awry. Shane called to me, “You look like you’re contemplating your doom.” I turned and said, “You’re a mindreader too?” “You’ve got to change your attitude, mate.” Sounded good to me.

He attached all the lines to me, then asked me to walk forward rapidly, head forward, and then asked me to run, and we were off - HEADED RIGHT FOR THE TREES! Shane pulled the cord on the right, and we slid to the right. He told me to sit and get comfortable, and I did as he asked. We soared and soared, following the ridge round and round, riding a thermal up and up, more than 1000 feet above our takeoff point, even seeing the mountains around Wanaka, and far, far above Queenstown, up to 4,500 feet. Still higher, watching as others tried, but failed, to reach our altitude. Then we struck out from the safety of the ridge line and its thermal, out over the town, even the lake, and then back again. Shane pointed out another flag below us, and told me that a basejumper (a person who jumps at low altitude and freefalls from a tandem paraglider) was going to jump - we watched and saw a guy jump and hurtle toward the ground, leading me to believe that he had waited too long and was going to rocket through someone’s roof. A tiny chute appeared, he veered from the rooftop and landed on an athletic field. Then Shane put us in a spin to lose altitude - round and round with the flag perpendicular to the ground and us thrown out to the side - and round and round some more, all the while losing huge chunks of altitude. He straightened up at about 750 feet above the ground, and then did a few wingovers, back and forth. We entered downwind, base and final legs like a plane, doing a few S-turns on final and deposited us onto the athletic field without a bump. Even Shane said it was an exceptional ride, and that no one else had been able to catch that thermal. With the wind increasing, it was one of the last flights of the day and lasted at least 20 minutes.
So if you come here, don’t even think about bungy jumping or going on a swing. For a few dollars more, you can go paragliding and get the rush of a bungy jump, and have it last for a much longer time. I had always feared jumping out of a plane with a parachutist, and running off a cliff with a paraglider wasn’t high on my list either ... until now.

And another dose of adrenaline

We decided to drive to Glenorchy, a very small village north of Queenstown and still on Lake Wakatipu. Well, it’s just like driving in Scotland or Ireland, and certainly the view of the lake and mountains is very similar to Scotland. As in Ireland, they post a 100 km/hr speed limit right in front of a sharp curve - an accepted method of population control apparently. And with huge dropoffs on the narrow road on the lakeside, one would think there would be guardrails. We saw only one on the entire trip of 30 miles or so. We had tea and apple strudel with whipped cream in a cafe, walked around and looked in some shops. Coming home, we kept up much better with the traffic, flooring it, then braking hard, flooring it again, then braking, etc. If that’s what it’s going to be like when we are on our own for a week, I’ll need more blood pressure medication.

We had a wonderful spaghetti and prawn dinner at Bella Cucina, and then went shopping, buying some New Zealand wool items. We’ve had a wonderful and full day, and should have no trouble sleeping. Not sure what is in store for tomorrow Maybe a “tramp” on a “track.”

Sleep tight and good night, love, Nat, Dad, Matt, DB

PS The picture I’m attaching is not of me as I don’t know how to take a picture off a CD that Shane gave me after the flight, with 7 or 8 pictures and a movie of a portion of the flight. It’s one I took while on the observation deck at the top of the gondola.