More of Queenstown – Backpacking around the World

More of Queenstown

The day started out slow as I hiked up the mountain that I conquered with the skyline gondola the day before.  On top of the mountain I met some fellow backpackers again who where doing “the luge”, a 800 meter downhill concrete track. Unfortunately it is possible to “race” down the luge. Boys tend to be competitive, as everyone knows and one of the girls that joined the race was injured and had to stay in Queenstown for a about two weeks with a broken ankle. So if you do the luge, consider not doing a race with competitive boys!

After the hike I spent some time at a fea market in the center of Queenstown. Surprisingly, even there they accept credit cards! I also decided to attend a palm reader to get some information’s regarding my future, which was fun and interesting. Fortunately he told me that I was going to reach a high age at good health, which meant I would survive the Canyon Swing that was going to happen that very same day.

After the flea market I met up with Laura, a Danish girl and and a guy from Stockholm – somehow I always only remember girls names that I travel with – to do the Canyon swing. We were take to the Shotover canyon by bus and given the equipment and instructions to survive the 60 meter freefall.

I was placed into a full body harness and then attached onto a twin rope swinging system. I started with jumping backwards in the unknown. I had my camera attached to my hand so when I would jump it would film the whole scene. I wonder if my insurance company would have covered the loss in case it would have fallen of my hand…. But luckily it went right and I got a great sequence of my screaming and making funny faces. My second jump was called  ‘Gimp Boy Goes To Hollywood’, where I was put face first looking into the abyss . It was really fantastic to experience the  60 meter freefall and the 200 meter arc.

The feeling afterwards is unbelievable, its like flying and one hell of an adrenalin rush.