Today was a busy day for the group. It was our first day in Queenstown, the capital of adventures in the south island of NZ, and everyone’s got their own idea of fun. Since the town will pretty much shut down on Christmas, we had to cram as much as we could on Day 1.
My adventure of choice was paragliding. It was a difficult choice, between this and jet boating, bungee jumping, heli-biking, water rafting… you get the idea. I actually signed up to skydive a few days before, but annoying clouds got in the way, so I was super psyched to see the clouds clear as we found our way into town. After a brief drive around the town, we got on the Skyline Gondola and headed to the top, where we got this amazing view of Lake Wakatipu.
According to Mauri legend, there was a beautiful girl named Manata, who was chased by all the young warriors of her Mauri tribe. She gave her heart to one young Matakauri, but her father the chief did not approve. Then one day, a fierce giant named Matau came to the tribe, and took Manata away as his prized treasure. The distraught chief called upon his warriors to rescue his daughter, and promised her hand in marriage to the one who would succeed. All the warriors were afraid of the giant, but there was one whose love was strong enough. Matakauri set out to find Manata, following the warm northwester wind that he knew put the giant to sleep. He finally found Matau’s lair and saw saw Manata tied to the arm of the sleeping giant. When Manata saw him, she weeped with joy and her tears dissolved the rope that bound her. The two escaped unscathed, and the chief fulfilled his promise to let them marry.
Matakauri wanted to make sure that Matau would never cause any trouble for his tribe again, so when the next northwester came, he set out to find the giant, and set fire to his bed of bracken as he slept. The fat from Matau’s body made the fire gorge out a hole in the ground, and melted snow filled it to create the lake now known as Lake Wakatipu, “The Hollow of the Giant.” The water level changes between 5-10cm every few minutes, and the legend says that it’s because Matau’s heart is still beating under the pristine water of the lake.
After enjoying the scenery for a while, we went around the luge track for a couple of times. It didn’t seem so fast when we were watching others, but the experience was quite a thrill when we were actually in the carts 🙂
When we finally finished playing around, it was time for the big event — paragliding all the way down to the bottom of the mountain! Except when we got to the counter, we were told that due to wind conditions, we can’t fly off this mountain anymore. Oh no! Another failed attempt at flying?! Before I got too disappointed, the crew offered to drive us to another mountain to paraglide instead. I obliged, slightly begrudgingly as I thought nothing could beat this view.
Well, New Zealand never seizes to provide more pleasant surprises. When we got to the top of the mountain, THIS is the view we got:
I only got to snap a few pictures before being asked to put on the harness. Unlike other adventures I’ve done, this one is pretty simple and required very little safety instructions. After I strapped in, my pilot Dave hooked the harness to the parachute, and told me to run off a cliff. Yup, no other instructions, just start running! It wasn’t as scary as you might think, especially when you’ve got an expert on your back. The parachute pulls up as we started running and I lose a footing for a second, then the next thing I know, we are already up in the sky!
My job is over by that point and all I had to do was relax and enjoy the ride. It was truly a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky as we passed over the valley. Dave went higher and higher, and soon we were way above our starting point, and I was able to see over a couple of the peaks of the Remarkables mountain range.
Being up so high and having my feet dangling in the air is an absolutely exhilarating feeling. Since I don’t have to worry about controlling anything, I can just enjoy the scenery and the wind whistling around you. After a few minutes, Dave asked whether I wanted to go on a roller coaster ride. I thought about it for a second and agreed, even though I really don’t enjoy roller coaster rides. He started with 360 degree spins, and it was a little scary, being up a few thousand feet in the air attached to a piece of cloth with a few strings, and hanging upside down. I had to mentally calm myself down and keep telling myself how many times this guy has done this before. But once I got over the initial fear, the ride was just a relaxing stroll in the sky. That is, until he asked whether I wanted to go on a roller coaster ride.
The roller coaster ride consisted of 360 degree spins in the air, which is kind of like a bat wing ride, except you are about 2000 feet up in the sky looking down on the beautiful terrain of the south island of New Zealand. That was the chill part of the roller coaster. Then came the swinging, which I can’t really relate to any other sports or recreational activity I’ve ever done before, except maybe a couple of seconds on a really really horrible boat ride where I puked 3 times. Unlike the boat ride, I had an amazing view, where the sky and green mountains swirled in front of my eyes into a beautiful expressionist painting. I laughed and screamed, until finally I got a bit dizzy and asked for a smooth descent to the bottom.
We drove past the same scenery on the way back into town, but it just didn’t seem quite the same. I think I may have left a bit of my heart up in the skies that time, I’ll just have to grab it in a couple of days when I jump off a plane from 15,000 feet!
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