4-9 The New Zealand Tour South Island: Wanaka, Queenstown, and Te Anau

After a nice sleep in the car I climbed out of the sleeping bag, rolled it up, and put it away to find that it was starting to rain. I had some doubts before going to bed about it raining and not being able to get a good view through clouds at the top of Roy's Peak so I waited for an hour, then two and it still did not subside. Feeling a little discouraged that the weather finally caught up to me I decided to drive to Queenstown through the Cardrona Valley. I found it to be an amazing drive and the rain was no where but the clouds laid overhead covering the blue sky. When heading down the last bit of the valley road it looked as if someone was having a drag race due to all the skid marks and I thought to myself did Top Gear film here?
Upon the arrival into Queenstown I thought I was in speedy mode due to all the people around and wasn't used to civilization after being away from a big cities and in the open lands of nature. Got into what felt like a big small town with a couple hours to spare before the 134m Nevis Bungee and checked some shops before entering a Happy Travels Adventure booking place. The town itself feels like an adventurers dream or an adrenaline junkies cup of tea and I was hooked into getting a half day mountain bike with a Milford Sound morning cruise as well. There is so much more you can do in that place from skydiving, paragliding, jet boating, lake skiing, and skidoo riding as well from what I was doing. After getting some paperwork for the adventures I had I headed over to the "Station" where they come pick you up and take you to the 3rd biggest operating bungee in the world. On the way out our bus broke down in a heaping smoke and some people where like: "your dragging this on longer, the anticipation is killing me". I was really content on the Bungee and if all else fails then "hey this was a good run so far". After about fifteen minutes went by before another bus came and picked us up and when we got close we had to go up this steep dirt road that at the top did a 70 degree incline making everyone go tense. Threw on a harness, got on a tiny cart overhanging a 100m inclining drop, and then came to the middle of the wire station throwing on ankle harnesses before sitting in a chair awaiting the drop. "Ok Utah look up here with a smile then out there, arms out, 3-2-1 Bungee!" says the harness operator and I was in free fall for about ten seconds before bouncing up again to failing again and then sitting in the middle of a canyon slowly brought back up to the station wanting to do it again. Operator: "How was it?" I replied: "Amazing!" Took the little cart back across and waited till the bus was going to take us back. Got into town a little late so I grabbed some food at the grocery store and headed out on the M6 then the M94 to Te Anau which is about 120km away from Milford Sound while the sun was fading away to the other side of the planet. Found a nice place to sleep in a neighborhood next to a butcher shop and was stoked to check out Milford Sound in the morning on a Jucy cruise.

Bye for now...

Some thoughts:

You'll find me starring down at the ground through a metal grate 130m up while wondering what it would feel like if I was to fall all the way down to the ground. Would the air make a difference? Would the silent serene canyon of no civilization calm my mind? Would the shrills of the people around me scare me even more or would it welcome me to the ground and the little stream of cushion in between? Would I smile on the way down? Would I let go and close my eyes feeling as if I'm falling into a mist of water? I step to the edge looking all the way down and smile. I leap out not even thinking about if the ground is there or not or that I could die in that moment if the cord holding me breaks and I find it to be so silently calm that fear is no where near. I realize that the jump wasn't the memory in my mind but being out in complete silence without worrying about anything was what cleared my mind of thought.
I hope you find that you could die at any moment and how you deal with letting go of that fear is purely up to you. Take it in with a breath and smile it away on the way out.


My Bungee Video thanks to YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmRS2MfmiHY&feature=youtube_gdata_player