On Saturday morning, I decided to get up and run since I hadn't run for a few days. Plus, I thought Queenstown was too beautiful not to go outside and run through. The only place to run was down, especially since I wanted to get down to the water, so unfortunately I had to go back up. Before that though I was able to run along the coast of the water and also through some bush. Running in the morning is always my favorite because the sun is coming up and it is always nice and cool. Add that to running in Queenstown in the morning and it makes for one great run. Running back up the hill really stunk, especially since I hadn't run for a few days, so that was rough but eventually I made it and felt super refreshed for once. Then I showered and got ready to go bungee jumping!!
We headed back to the Kawarau Bridge to bungee. We had to get all checked in and then we were out on the bridge waiting our turn. We had convinced Courtney the night before to sign up with us. I basically asked her what she would regret about doing it and she couldn't think of any reason, so she did it! We got split into two groups since they have two lines that rotate every other. Shaina and Courtney were in one line so I was by myself. Basically, you have a harness and then go down into the bungee area and they strap in your feet. They wrap a towel around your ankles and then fasten your legs extremely close together. You have to push your legs together really tight because they don't want much space between your ankles when you jump. Then they book your legs to your harness and attach the bungee chord. Then you stand up and hop to the edge where they take your picture.
You can tell I look kind of nervous. It was a lot different than skydiving because with skydiving I felt really secure to the person behind me jumping with me. With bungee jumping, however, you only feel the harness around your ankles and then there is nothing behind you at all. It's scary standing on the edge looking down thinking that you are about to jump off of a bridge and be pulled back by the ankles. They count to three and then you either fall or jump off. It's smartest to take like a dive so that you go down head first rather than feet first. It prevents you from having to flip over feet up when the bungee catches you. Sometimes they workers would count to three and then the person jumping would grab back at them and then they would try again. I knew I was going to buy pictures, so I wanted them to look good. When they counted to three I just didn't even think about it, bent my legs, and jumped. I wanted my arms to be out in my pictures, so that's what I was focusing on...good form!! It was so crazy just falling with nothing around you.
Originally I didn't think I would scream, but it was hard not to as I'm falling towards the river. I wasn't falling for that long, but from the second my feet left the bridge I was waiting to feel that pull from the bungee to say I made it.
After the bungee caught me the first time, you spring back up and basically just fly through the air. I kept spinning in circles when I did it. It was such an exhilarating feeling.
Then once you start slowing down, these people come out in a boat and hold up a pole for you to grab. You are hanging upside down and you had just jumped off a bridge, so it was kind of disorienting trying to grab it. Once you have hold of it you stop spinning and they pull you down to the boat. You basically tuck your head in and then do a somersault to get into a good position for them to detach you from the bungee.
I was worried that bungee-ing might hurt when you bounce back up the first time, but it really wasn't that bad. My shins have been hurting from running, and since I had ran that morning they were kind of tender. They were hurting as they strapped on the towel and harness, so when I jumped and was hanging upside it kind of hurt. I don't think that would have happened though to people with normal legs. Shaina had jumped before me and then Courtney went after me, so it was really fun seeing Shaina jump from the top and then watch Courtney from the bottom. It was by far one of the best things I had ever done and I was sad it was over so quick!
After bungee jumping it was time to continue on our journey to Arrowtown. I had heard that Arrowtown was just a small little town that was worth spending a couple hours or so in just checking out the town. We got lucky (for like the thousandth time on this trip) and it just so happened that Arrowtown was having their fall festival that week! We were fortunate enough to be there on a Saturday when a lot of events were happening. It was fall, so there was a huge hill with a ton of trees on it that were red, orange, yellow, and green. It was so beautiful.
I've seen plenty of beautiful falls before, but this one was great especially since it was a beautiful day again. The first thing we got to do was go to a market. There were so many tents with people selling handmade crafts, food, and plenty of merino wool (which is expensive but wonderful!) I don't have anything merino cause I can't afford it, but if you live here I think it's like a must that you own at least one thing that's merino wool. It keeps you warm, dry, and doesn't get smelly (like for real. I got to wear some when we went on our camping trip with school and it was amazing).
After looking around at all of the shops, there was an air show. There was just one plane that was flying around and going up really really high (straight up) and then doing some swirls and coming back down. It was pretty neat since I haven't really seen an air show before. Then after he was done, they had a parade. It wasn't like parades we have at home where we get candy thrown at us by everyone. They mostly had some community floats such as the local vet and singing groups and different community organizations and clubs.
Once the parade was done, we decided to walk into town to look at some of the shops and buildings. We were told that Arrowtown had the best homemade fudge, so obviously we checked it out. I felt like a giant inside of the store. There were so many little children inside of the candy store. You can take a bag and put as much stuff as you want in it to buy, so that's what all the little kids were doing. Meanwhile, they let you taste their fudge, and they really didn't have a limit to the kinds you could taste. They had so many flavors that ranged from applie pie to cookies n cream to tuxedo to caramel to peanut butter to cappuccino and so much more. I ended up getting Hokey Pokey fudge. It was wonderful!
Then we just kept walking around and looking at all of the shops. There were a ton of people there, so I don't know if there are a lot of people in the town (which I doubt) or if there were just a ton of people out and about for the festival since it was a nice day out. The town itself was a cute town that I could definitely see myself loving. Apparently Shania Twain owns a ton of land either in or really near Arrowtown and I can see why.
Once we had had our fill of Arrowtown, we were onto our next location, Wanaka. We were driving over this passage called the Crown Range. Although I have much to say about Wanaka, that will be in my next post!
No comments:
Post a Comment