Queenstown Adventures

Queenstown, New Zealand

  Queenstown, New Zealand
  Queenstown is the epicenter for backpacker adventure thrills in New Zealand. Stories of bungee jumps, sky diving, canyoning, jet boating, luging, all in one day and bar hopping at night are things of legend out of this city. We had two days planned just for this one town so we got right to work when we showed up.
  First thing on the list, buy advanced tickets for the world premier midnight showing of the Hobbit II. We waited in line for over an hour, behind a few people dressed as hobbits. Since New Zealand is in the first time zone we were the first ones to see the movie anywhere, and I couldn't imagine a more fitting place to see it, surrounded by the scenery of Middle Earth. Many of the scenes from the movies were filmed in and around Queenstown.

View from the Gondola

  
We also packed in a Gondola trip up the mountain overlooking the town and a couple of luge passes, which is pretty much like go karting. You go way faster, take sharper turns, and was more fun that I expected.





 

Canyoning adventure

More canyoning

 We saved the next day for a canyoning adventure. This is where you don a full wetsuit, helmet, climbing harness, and prepare for the ultimate waterfall adventure. Our guide took us on ziplines across gorges, jumps off waterfalls, rapelling down the cliff side, sliding down rapids, and even rapelling out 50ft over the river with the option of letting ourselves down nice and slow or letting go for a freefall down into the rapids. The wetsuits kept us from getting too cold in the near freezing water, and everyone made it without injury. Unfortunately we couldn't take the GoPro's (because they want you to buy their photo package) but I snagged a couple shots from the internet to give you an idea of what we looked like.

Ice Bar, Queenstown

  After adventuring all day we had to check out a bit of the nightlife here. There are some great themed bars including a cowboy bar complete with saddles for bar stools and a mechanical bull (which I did last more than 8 seconds on), and an ice bar, where everything is made/carved out of ice. Luckily gloves and parkas are included for that one. There is always more to do in Queenstown but we were running out of time and still had one big stop on the itinerary, Fjordland National Park.

In the urinal at the cowboy bar. This welshman said some 

unkind things about Kiwi Rugby so now his statue sits here.

The road south

Nonstop Adventure

Queenstown, New Zealand