Canyon Bungee!!! (scroll down for great pictures!)

We have totally rocked the extreme-sport circuit in New Zealand! Yesterday we went to Canyon Bungee and jumped off a platform to a 60 meter freefall, down 109 meters to the bottom of the canyon, and into a 200 meter arc swinging back and forth between the cliffs.

The bathroom at the site was the cutest pit toilet I’ve ever seen, so I had to take a photo:


They had wonderful signs lining the short walk to the jumping platform:





The jumping platform above the canyon:


Actually jumping was TERRIFYING. It was definitely scarier than skydiving, because we had to jump ourselves. You could choose to jump in whatever style/position you wanted – all 4 of us tried the “Pin Drop,” which involves bending your knees, clasping your hands behind your back, and jumping into a complete freefall. I cheated a little and grabbed the rope instead of keeping my hands behind my back, but there was NO way I was going to just let myself fall into nothingness with just one small rope around my waist to keep me from dying. I reallllly liked it, although I would definitely pick skydiving before I would do this again.






And I get smaller...



And smaller...



And smaller!


The people who worked there had a GREAT sense of humor, meaning they like to torture nervous tourists. KL and Caitlin were almost crying when they came up – not because of the experience, but because the guys kept pretending to drop them!! They didn’t give me and Erikka as hard a time because we jumped faster, but they were trying to make us nervous all the same, pretending to throw us off or trip and push us a little. Ridiculous!



We spent the rest of the afternoon yesterday ironing out our plans for the North Island. We leave Queenstown tomorrow and will fly to Auckland, spend one night, and then go to Waitomo to see the glow worm caves and go black water rafting. We were going to try to squeeze in a 4-hour day trip to Rotorua, which has fantastic sulfur pools and mud pits, but it didn’t really seem feasible since we’d spend over 8 hours on buses, barely have time to see anything, and since there are geothermal pools in California like the ones in Lassen, we figured we’d rather see the glow worms and really enjoy the caves.

Today we went horseback riding in Glenorchy, a small town about 45 minutes away from Queenstown at the other end of Lake Wakatipu. Since we’re just traveling tomorrow, I’ll try to get my photos sorted out and send those over! Love you all!