Gravity and water are your friends

Well, as promised, the first post detailing some of the things I’ve done in the last couple of months.

First up, all the stuff my mom didn’t want to know about in advance.

Bungy Jump

Bungy jumping was an interesting experience. I did it from the Kawarau bridge near Queenstown which was the first commercial bungy jumping place in the world.

Strangely enough I wasn’t really nervous about doing it until I was actually on the ledge and looking down. At that point I did start to question my sanity a bit, after all why did I even want to fall down like that? Sure, it always seemed like the thing to do when I’d get to Queenstown, but was it really necessary?

Unfortunately, I wasn’t really given a choice in the matter once I was up there so I just made the most of it and did a dive that makes it all look a bit better. Besides, Kelsey was there and she’d done one so I couldn’t look bad :-).

Jet boat

In Queenstown as well, after all it’s the place to go to for activities like this, we went on a jet boat. Basically this is a boat that can go in about 5 centimeter deep water and consists mainly of an engine. The ride itself then went through the Shotover river where we went over plenty of shallow water and making 360 degrees turns. Pretty exciting, and fun to do.

White water rafting

The day after the jet boat I went rafting. This also took place on the Shotover river, but on a different part of it. Well, rafting is rafting so it’s pretty clear what went on here. We were first transported to the start of the track in a bus driving on a road that’s basically one big disaster waiting to happen but has some great views. Of course, it was pretty cloudy that day so the views were somewhat limited and I also didn’t bring my camera so I can’t even show the views. Just believe me when I say they looked good.

Once there we all got sorted into rafts, and as usual there was the whole bumping other rafts into the rocks and water fights thing. We could also go out of the raft for a bit to swim through one of the rapids, which was fun in its own way. Luckily we wore wetsuits or it would have been too cold. The movie embedded below doesn’t show my day for the most part, but still gives a good view of what it was like.

Skydive

The highpoint of all these activities was the skydive. I did this in Wanaka because I’d heard the view there was the best. It was simply awesome. For the skydive I was nervous long before I actually got into the little airplane that was going to take me up there. Especially as they were running late so it took some extra time. Anyway, I got really nervous while waiting and during the whole 30 minutes flight I could still feel the butterflies tap-dancing in my stomach.

And then the moment arrived where I actually jumped (with help from the guy attached to my back) out of a perfectly fine airplane from a height of 15.000 feet. The free fall was pretty much one of the best things I’ve ever felt. Complete freedom and the wind just rushing past your face. Only enjoying the sights and feelings of that wind. It’s hard to describe really, but I can definitely recommend it to everybody. Just thinking about it makes me happy again.

Parachuting the last part was pretty good as well, and gave a better opportunity to enjoy the sights, but it was nothing compared to the free fall.

Canyoning

Canyoning was another thing I did while I was in Wanaka. What is canyoning? Basically it’s moving through a canyon, but in doing so you’ll end up doing all kind of fun stuff like abseiling cliffs and waterfalls, sliding through streams, crawling in a lot of places, ziplining, jumping of cliffs and more. It lasted all day, and while I was pretty exhausted in the end I also had a lot of fun. I saw a canyon from a way you usually don’t see them, and most importantly did a lot of things I never did before but that turned out to be quite interesting to do.

All in all, the playing with water and gravity I did in all these activities was a lot of fun and I can only recommend everyone to do them. Especially the skydive as that is just too much fun not to do. Except probably when you’re afraid of heights and/or flying, it’s probably not a very good idea in that case.