Fjords, Sounds and Adrenaline
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Queenstown is the home of Adrenaline. It really is. The list of adventure activities is endless and half the things on the list are things I had never heard before but liked the sound of, eg: Canyon Swing and River Boarding. We both wanted to experience white water rafting so that was booked immediately for the next day.
The Shotover river has grade 3 to 5 rapids, where 5 is really really scary and 6 is don't do it even if you rule at white water rafting. On the day the rapids where somewhere between grade 4 and 5 according to our Brazilian guide, Marcio. It also happened to be Marcio's first time guiding a raft down the river. Luckily he was being supervised by “The Chief” who had done it a couple of times before. To make matters a little bit more interesting Marcio did not speak very good English, this however wasn't really a problem as the other four people in the boat didn't really speak English either. We had a 60 year old Chinese lady who couldn't swim, her daughter (who did the translating) and a French couple who a) didn't speak very good English and b) didn't really want to work to hard at paddling. How we survived I do not know! At one point we were about to tip over and take a plunge in the about 10 C cold water but luckily I still have enough weight on me to beat some Chinese hobbits so the day was saved. All in all it was an awesome experience and we had a great time. After the rafting we thoroughly enjoyed the hot showers and very “Swedish” Sauna (about 50 C and water throwing forbidden).
The minute we decided to go on our little trip, I made the decision that I was going to use the opportunity to jump out of a plane, as high up as possible. Skydiving has a weight limit of 100 kg but my 101 kg was good enough for jazz, so I signed up for the next day. The rest of the day I was a bit of a nervous fit and had to have a couple of cold beers to calm my nerves. Unfortunately the next day the weather in Queenstown was so bad that all the skydives of the day were cancelled... Luckily the weather at nearby Lake Wanaka was perfect so we jumped in our car and drove there. On the way Micki decided that she also wanted to take the plunge so 30 minutes after arriving at Lake Wanaka we were watching a safety video, while wearing a jumpsuit and a harness. 10 minutes later we were sitting in a propeller plane going up to 15,000 ft (~4500m). When I thought we were at about the right altitude my tandem guy said “Ok, we are now half way”, sure enough we climbed right through the clouds until the ground was but a distant memory. A moment later a door in the side of the plane opened, a light went green, I sat down, a guy with a video camera on his head climbed out of the plane, I heard the word “ready?”. I had a look down and saw the clouds below us and then we leaned forward. I thought it was going to be scary but it isn't scary at all. First there is an awkward tumbling sensation followed by a feeling of falling very very fast... which is precisely what you are doing. Terminal velocity is 200 km/h for a human body and it takes 12 seconds (of the 60 second free fall) to reach that speed. The coolest moment was the “oomph” sound when you go into the clouds and the new “oomph” sound when you come out the other end and see the ground below you. Then the chute opens and you have a nice float about while gravity does the rest. Super pleased I ran over to Micki who landed just after me and said “That was awesome, eh?”. She gave it a seconds thought and said “I dunno, I much preferred the white water rafting, I didn't get any great views and the free fall was just really really cold” … tough girl, eh?
To get the adrenaline high to subside it was time to go do something a little bit more relaxing, namely a cruise around one of the most beautiful fjords in New Zealand: Doubtful Sound. We drove out to Lake Manapouri were we boarded a boat that took us over to the other side of the lake. From there a bus took us down to the beginning of the fjord. The fjord itself is stunning with 1000m mountains coming right down into the water. There are waterfalls everywhere and to top it all off we even got to go kayaking around. There were no other boats there which accented the total serenity of the place. During our two day trip we saw Bottlenose Dolphins, Fur seals, Penguins and Albatross. All this was wrapped up in the best dinner we have had all trip... not a bad two days I can tell you.
So now we are back at Lake Wanaka and tomorrow we are going to be heading up the west coast to the Fox and Franz Joseph Glaciers.
Take care now, bye bye then,
Robbe & Micki
Posted byRobbe at 10:45
Deady forsch. Kan int överhuvudtaget tro att micki han skydeivea före mig!!! aina ei voi voittaa...
den anonyma posten är helt klar av en viss lillebror Hjelt... Ni (Micki o Robbe) är helt galna! Har mannen med kameran på huvudet lyckats fånga er på film när ni hoppar? Det sku vara spännande att se!
Många kramar!
en viss lillasyster G Hjelt
Inte kan jag nu vara en tjicken shit... och jo, allt finns på video.
Liite coooolt. Jag sku nog aldrig våga! :)