We woke up on Monday, picked up our camper van, went to Pak n Save to get some food for the trip, and promptly headed for the West Coast. The drive was once again, absolutely beautiful. Driving through Arthur's Pass with it's rolling, snow-topped mountains can't really be described, only experienced. Just believe me, it was astounding. We covered a good amount of the West Coast and stayed in a park in Franz Josef Glacier that night.
The next morning, Tuesday, we set out to walk the trail to Fox Glacier. When we got there, we were disappointed to find that it was closed. So we saw the glacier from afar and then went back into town and ate at a cafe. Then we set out for Wanaka. On the way, we stopped at so many places. First, at King's Point lookout that overlooked the ocean. Next, we stopped at an actual beach and spent some time having fun in the sand. Then, we stopped and walked down to these amazingly green lakes filled with glacial water.
The drive into Wanaka was absolutely beautiful. It literally looked like a painting. Or maybe artists are just better at painting than I ever thought. But either way, there were rolling hills, mountains side by side, snow-topped mountains, lakes on the bottom of these mountains. I mean seriously, anything you could ask for, we saw it. I don't know how this place is so beautiful everywhere we go, but it truly blows my mind on the reg.
Either way, once we arrived in Wanaka we had dinner and then decided to see what this town was about. We ended up in the upstairs of a cafe with all of these people who looked they were straight out of the 70's. I'm not even kidding. There were epic mustaches and a circle of friends. There was also a radio station right next to where we were sitting which only added to the vibes. Pretty cool place for sure. After we left, we headed to find a camp site and get some sleep.
Wednesday began by eating breakfast in Wanaka Park. This town was so cute! It is a place that I want to visit again before I leave. After having coffee in a cute little cafe, we headed towards Queenstown. Once again, EPIC DRIVE. Apparently this drive is called the Crown Ridge drive. Basically, we were up on top of a windy mountain overlooking the entire town with huge rolling mountains and wonderful green hilly grass everywhere. I mean, I don't know how, but it's continually astounding. And it never gets old.
Our arrival in Queenstown was surprising. Queenstown is a pretty big part of New Zealand. I assumed that it would be really tourist-y. But it was absolutely adorable. And you could see beautiful epic mountains from the street. Overall, a really cool place. Well, we got into the I-site at Queenstown and inquired about Bungy Jumping. I was still a bit shaky about the whole idea seeing as I had spontaneously decided to go the day before. But we ended up paying for it and headed to the site.
This is as much as I can condense the story of my Bungy Jumping experience, but I will attempt to make it short. So, we get on the bus that is taking us to the private Nevis Jump. And the whole time I am pretty scared, just thinking about the jump. Once we got there, we got suited up and the guy who is putting on all these crazy harnesses asks me if I've ever been bungy jumping before. I answer no. And he says something along the lines of, "Oh, starting big ae?!"
That's when I was hit over the head with the fact that this jump was, in fact, 134 meters up a.k.a. the third highest Bungy Jumping place in the ENTIRE WORLD. Awesome, as if I wasn't scared enough.
We were then brought outside to wait for our turn to get into the pod that would bring us to the platform so that we could make our jump. Walking out there only made me one million times more scared. Because we were literally jumping into a canyon. I mean, we couldn't even see how far down the people who were jumping would get from where we were standing. That's how far we were going. What?! My current thought process at this point was, "WHAT AM I DOING?!?!" We were soon told to get on the pod, which was so far up, it was scary in and of itself.
Either way, we arrived at the platform and I don't even know what nerves were going through me. But I was SO EXCITED and SO SCARED at the same time. So Shona was up first. And she took it like a champ. I mean, you could definitely see she was scared, but she just semi-hyperventilated while walking over and when they counted down, she jumped. Then it was Courtney's turn. Can we say Most Composed? She was super chill about the whole thing the whole time. It took her about a second after he told her to jump to jump but she did it with complete ease.
...And then it was my turn. Let's just say, they named my jump Biggest Freak Out. I got to the seat prior to the jump and was like, "Okay, I can do this." I started asking really stupid questions about pulling the leg harness and stuff like that. And then I stood up and headed toward the actual platform and I was fine. And then I looked down. Uuumm.. I can literally think of NOTHING more terrifying than that moment. I'm not even going to pretend like I wasn't scared out of my mind. I immediately started freaking out and saying, "I can't do this. I'm so scared. I'm really sorry, I'm so scared." The guy leading me out there was helpful. He'd say encouraging words and I'd look up and be ready to jump and then I'd look down again and completely freak out again. This continued for a while -- maybe a minute or so, which is a long time when standing 134 meters in the air knowing you are about to plummet into nothingness.
I don't even know what it actually took for me. But finally I just did it, my knees completely buckled underneath me and I jumped. At first I was closing my eyes and then I was like, "Wait, open your eyes idiot!" It was the most AMAZING feeling.
Literally free falling. Oh man, and I got really close to the water. I distinctly remember looking down and see how close I was getting. It was incredible. Just hanging out in the middle of canyon. Wow. I would advise everyone to try this at least once in their life. I'm not even kidding. I can think of no better feeling. I was pulled back up and tried to regain my composure. I thanked the guys for helping me out and apologized for freaking out. And then it was Cathy's turn. She had a mini- freak out also. But in the end, she went pretty easily -- arms flailing and all. It was so cool to share this experience with these girls. We all got to see a side of ourselves we had never seen before. This was how we reacted to pure fear. Some were composed. Others flipped out. But we all did it. Such an extraordinary feeling!
Once we got back, we spent the rest of the night talking about life post-bungy. Oh, also, Eunice texted us to tell us we had ANOTHER week off of University. Hello, month long break. This day could not have gotten any better. So we walked around Queenstown and checked out the town. We soon came back and found a random parking lot to sleep in and ended the most epic day of our lives with smiles on our faces.
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