South Island Day 9: Schwiiiiiiing

Morning Jaunt Up Shotover River

We'd booked one of them combo things which meant the once we were off the jet boat all we had to do was wait for the transport for the next activity to arrive and that would be the Canyon Swing then which is a mere 109 metres high with a 60 metre freefall and a 200 metre arc whilst harnessed to... well... string or something I guess. Surely it'd be nothing compared to the 15000ft jump we did yesterday right?

Ha. Yeah. Whatever.

The Canyon Swing Platform

I had approximately seven grey hairs when I got to Queenstown. I had a feeling they'd be added to over the next couple of days and made a mental note to extend my badger stripe to accommodate them if neccessary.
On arrival at their base you make good use of the long drops, one of which is covered in pictures of David Hasselhoff. As if falling off a 109m platform wasn't scary enough! Then for some reason they draw little pictures on your hand. Shane got an 8 ball, Nat got a pretty flower. I got a picture of some mountains with a little stick man stood at the top and another one lying at the bottom in a pool of blood.

Oh very fucking comforting thankyouverymuch, I'll just shit my pants now shall I?

Signing Ya Life Away

There are heaps of jump suggestions for the Canyon Swing, you can pretty much go off which ever way you want, forwards, backwards, head or feet first, you can have them release you or they'll even tie you to a chair and let you tip backwards but not before fucking with you, letting you go and then pulling you back at the last second. The Canyon Swing guys must take a course in Bastardry before they're allowed to work there.

Nat went first and demonstrated that you have no control over what noise you make when the ground gets taken away from you. It was hilarious, she jumped off forwards and let out this blood curdling yell that pretty much summed it up and translated roughly as, "fuck me, where's the floor gone?!" One of the guys turned to Shane and said, "bet ya never heard her scream like that before, have ya mate?"

Yeah Yeah, I'm A Pussy

I went next but opted for the Elvis Cutaway where they release you thus saving you the hassle of actually jumping yourself. Yep, I'm a pussy and will freely admit this here as only about four people in the world read this and one of them is my mother.

(waves at mum)

They suspend you lying down over the canyon and unwind the bit of wire thats keeping you held up and they don't give you a chance to decide you don't want to do it anymore, they just whip the wire out and send you plummeting although to be honest it wasn't the big rush I was expecting. I decided to go again and this time I'd harden up and jump myself. Grr an things.

Shane went next and went for the Pin Drop which is where you stand side on with your hands behind your back, focus on your toes and jump off sideways, the aim being to keep your hands behind your back the whole way down. Fair play to him for going through with it, we watched his DVD back and he was terrified and even sort of morphed into Golem at one point. As he went over the edge all you could here was, "Oh fuck!" as he tried to climb back up the preciousssss rope.

Golem Of Lord Of The Rings Fame

Shane Before His Canyon Swing

I gotta admit, it really it worth getting the bottle up to jump yourself, it was so much more fun the second time around, I was grinning so much my face cramped up. If you wanna check out the videos (and Nat's is worth it just for that scream) clicky here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ohfuckkit/3332879100/ for mine, here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ohfuckkit/3332874766/ for Golem's and here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ohfuckkit/3332846086/ for Nat's.

So today was our breaking ourselves in day. Today was actually relaxed compared to what the next day had in store. Today was a fucking holiday compared to what we'd be putting ourselves through tommorrow. The first half of the day was going to be taken up with white water rafting which would hopefully take our minds off the 134m bungy we'd be doing in the afternoon.

I expressly forbade my sister from ever visiting me in a country reknowned for adrenalin activites ever again.

written by  Koala Bear on February 11, 2009 from Queenstown, New Zealand
from the travel blog: Tiny Little NZ Road Trip
tagged RoadTrip, LovinIt and SouthIsland
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