Day 15: Wednesday, March 5, Arrowtown/Queenstown

This day was spent in Queenstown, though we are staying in Arrowtown. Arrowtown is about 19km away and living is a lot cheaper there. Morning chills and rain didn’t bode well, so we had a relaxed morning and did some looking ahead. Things cleared up about mid-day and we ventured out.

Queenstown is on the map because it is an adrenaline mecca. One person said that Queenstown is great “if you have deep pockets,” and they are right. I knew before the trip that this is where I would blow a wad. (I haven’t been eating PB&J for lunch this entire trip for nothing.) First up was jetboating. The boat is basically powered by two massive waterpumps that suck up from the bottom and shoot out the back. None of the engine protrudes down below, so at full speed it draws only three or four inches. The contact point with the water when going full speed is about 2/3 of the way back – this is also the pivot point for the craft. There is no keel (it’s flat-bottomed to help have a low draft). The net result is a boat that can skim at high speeds over very shallow and rocky glacial rivers and drives like a car that is constantly sliding. The driver could quickly pivot the wheel, spin the nose close to a rock face or make it stick out over rocks, and then pivot back before the boat starts to move in the new direction. Before we got to the river we had to cross part of the lake. The wind was blowing quite steadily and hard and turning up some waves that I would guess were three feet tall. The combination of speeding across the waves and the naturally high wind produced face-distorting winds. It reminded me of going across the Indian Ocean to Phi Phi Island a couple of years ago, but much milder.

After that we noodled up the main Queenstown street. It’s lined with souvenir shops, but it also has an assortment of upscale women’s clothing stores. I guess Queenstown attracts more than just wild 20-somethings.

I would like to think this was a graceful swan dive.

On the way back where we were staying William and I went bungee jumping. The first commercial jump was off a bridge outside of town, and that’s where we headed. This also happens to be the 20^th anniversary of the first commercial bungee. I figure that the primary fall (not counting rebounds) cost about $32 per second, making it the most expensive time of my life that I can remember.

[I wrote the above while in the communal kitchen of our holiday park. Somehow a cat had gotten in and was exploring the kitchen. The power cord to the laptop suddenly started moving off the table and I found the cat pawing the cord from the floor.]

Bungee jumping was a lot different from skydiving, yet similar in some ways. The waiver was just the back of a page and required one signature, whereas my skydiving waiver had me sign a million times and must have required a whole tree to print. I got there, they weighed me, I walked out to the platform, they tied up my feet, and I jumped all in the space of 5-10 minutes. When I went skydiving there was at least an hour and a half of paperwork, suiting up, waiting, instructions, flight up to altitude, and then the jump and the descent down. (Not to mention the fact that I jumped the third day I went out there because weather canceled the first two.) I also found myself instinctively trying to spread my legs for control (like you do in skydiving) and wanting to look forward and down, which isn’t possible once the cord goes into tension and hangs you upside down. When I hit the bottom I twisted around to get my bearings and I’m sure I looked like a worm wriggling on a fishing line.

After that it was back home. The place we were staying had a little playground consisting of a teeter totter, a swing set, a rope climbing tower, and this. The “Supernova” just looks like a flat washer made of plastic tilted at an angle of 20 degrees or so. It sits on bearings so that it can spin. If the people playing on it aren’t balanced, it begins to spin. It sounds simple and it is simple, but it is also a ton of fun. (When I’m forty I’m going to have a secret hangout with a Ripstick, a good rope swing, and one of these.) I figure I spent about four hours on it between the two nights I was there. John also got a refresher lecture about centripetal force and center of mass. (The original lecture came while using a friend’s Ripstick.) A few little kids joined us, including an 8yo from Australia named James. For some reason he attached to me. If I went swinging, he went swinging. I didn’t mind it, but I wasn’t sure what sparked it. We talked about a lot of things, one of them being food – his mom was a chef. I asked him if they ever ate macaroni and cheese (as a recent college grad, I had noticed an acute lack of mac & cheese in the grocery). He said he had never heard of it. I guess that leaves Aussie/Kiwi uni students with ramen as their only cheap food supply. (Actually, I’m sure they have their own cheap substitute, but it probably involves Nutella and therefore I’m not interested.)