Change In Plans

A LUGE RACE TO THE FINISH

Greetings from Queenstown, New Zealand!

Queenstown promotes itself aggressively as the “adventure capital of the world.” As India and I sit in front of the fireplace, hoarse from screaming and brain dead from multiple adrenaline overloads, we have to agree.

When we finally got back from the Doubtful Sound cruise yesterday afternoon (7 long hours from deck to door), we moved into a comfortable and stylish house on the outskirts of Queenstown. We were a little surprised to find the house in the middle of a subdivision under construction: the on-line photos showed open fields and mountain views. Once we were inside though, doing laundry and cooking dinner for kids, we realized that a dose of suburbia would be good for all of us.

This morning we did school, bought groceries, and India and I went for runs separately.  At noon, adventure day got started.

We drove down into Queenstown, and took a gondola up to a recreation area which seems to be called “The Ledge.”   It is on the side of a steep mountain, about 400 meters above the town.  Across the valley, the Remarkable Mountains were frosted with snow, and darkened with a layer of low-hanging clouds.  The mountains are aptly named. 

The Ledge has a few hiking trails, and a good restaurant, but the main attractions are the adrenaline activities: roller luge, hang gliding, and bungy jumping. The hang gliding was closed, but it wasn’t clear if that was due to the high winds or the two hang gliding fatalities in an accident on Tuesday.

Yesterday afternoon, in a fit of pre-meditated boldness, India and I had booked and paid for bungy jumping from The Ledge.  We were scheduled to check in at 2 pm today, but had arrived about an hour early.  

We filled the nervous interlude by riding the roller luge, a cement track which you descend on a small, motorless go cart.  The roller luge required helmets and another chair lift further up the mountain.  The rules require that every passenger’s first luge ride is on the “Scenic Route,” which meanders gently down the hillside.  After one scenic ride, Zola and I were free to race each other down the slightly faster “Advanced Course.”  In our second run,  Zola failed to negotiate a curve at speed on the advanced course, went flying off the track, somehow jumped a low curb, and landed on his wheels on the scenic course.  He proceeded down the scenic course as if nothing had happened, and we all laughed about it at the bottom.

Eventually, it was 2 pm, and we tramped down to the bungy-jump check in.  When we had registered in town yesterday, Zola told the woman at the counter that he was only nine, which made him too young to bungy jump.  Today he had decided he was keen to try it, and was wondering whether we could stretch the truth on his age a little.   He was disappointed when the woman at the mountainside check-in was the same as the one down in town yesterday, and she greeted him with, “How is my nine-year-old friend doing today?”

The jumping hut was cantilevered out from the mountainside, 143 meters above the ground.  The trio in the jumping hut seemed serious, experienced, and reasonably sober.  After they weighed me, they strapped a (reassuringly high quality) climbing harness on, and gave me a short briefing.  Then they invited me to have a look over the edge.  Holy Toledo!  Long way down.  Because the mountainside drops away another 260 meters to the center of Queenstown, it seems higher than it really is.  The peek over the edge was very scary.

Pierre, the jump master, guided me back about 2 meters from the edge, and said, “On the count of one, run and dive.  5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1. Go, go, go!”  I was too busy being scared to internalize that he had done the instructions and countdown without taking a breath, or asking if I had any last words.  India and both kids were standing on a catwalk about 20 meters away, blowing kisses and preparing to take pictures.  

I rubbed my face, gulped hard, and asked Pierre if he was happy that the harness was absolutely secure.  He responded, “Yes I am.”  He paused for half a second, and said, “Look out at the horizon.  5 - 4 - 3 -2 - 1.  Go, go, go!”

And so I went, screaming my lungs out, over the edge. 

AAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!

The fall was very quick; 2-3 seconds before the bungy cord caught me, and I bounced back up.  My body was terrified as soon as I jumped, but by the time my intellect caught up, I was hanging there safely.  A truly wild and cathartic feeling.

To be honest, I  was surprised that India wanted to do this as well.  She gets no thrill from driving fast, or from sliding, rolling, or sledding down hills.  On bike rides she is notorious for being the first to the top of any hill, and - riding the brakes the whole way-  the last to the bottom.

Still, after many years together, she has not lost the ability to keep me guessing.  As soon as I was off the harness, she was strapping into the Bungy Swing.  We both thought that the swing would be more innocuous than the jump, but I think it was much more intense.  She was lowered out onto a cable 140 meters above the mountain, attached by two long ropes to the jump hut.  

India “pulled her own rip cord” as instructed, and was sent sailing out into space.  She dropped 40-50 meters to the bottom of the arc, and then swung up the other side.  She didn’t even scream, cool customer that she is.

JUST PULLED THE RIP CORD - AAAAAAGGGGHHH!

LOOK CLOSELY - SHE IS THE BLACK DOT IN THE CENTER

After she was winched up and unharnessed, we walked to the restaurant, and ordered lunch for the kids.  India and I both were a little shaky, and definitely confused in our heads from the adrenaline rush.  We forgot her camera case in the jump hut, and then forgot the camera itself in the restaurant.  We could not figure out the logistics for splitting into two groups, so that she and Lu could go shopping.  I couldn’t add 58 + 38 to figure out the prospective cost of buying photos of our experience.  It was a weird set of neurological aftershocks.

Eventually, India and Lu did go down to the village.  They were cold and tired, and had seen a shop full of little girls’ clothes that was having a going-out-of-business sale.  Zola and I stayed to do more luge races, and so that I could jump again.   My ticket was the bungy-jump equivalent of an all-you-can-eat buffet.

When we went back to the jump hut, the team was on a “legally mandated 30-minute safety break.”  When they returned, Zola asked what they do during this time.  Pierre, the jump master, said, “We drink hard liquor, of course.”  Ha ha.

I ended up only jumping two more times.  Before I went, Zola and I had front-row seats as a chubby young Englishwoman chickened out (for lack of a better word) dramatically.  Three times they counted down from five.  She took two running steps, but stopped, windmilled dramatically, and clung on to the jump-hut wall.  Eventually, Pierre unclipped her and sent her away in tears.

Just before my third jump, Pierre said, “You know, the proper way to do this is to dive.  You have been screaming impressively, but kind of leaping out feet first.  Let’s see a dive this time.”   This was by far the scariest part of the adventure.  My heart is racing as I write about it 10 hours later.  I pitched headlong over the edge, screaming, and I laughed uncontrollably as they winched me back up when I stopped bouncing.

Frankly, after that, I was a wreck.  I don’t know how many jumps it takes before it is no longer scary, but we have a long way to go.

Zola and I went back up to the luge track, and had several very satisfying races down the advanced track.  He always managed to just beat me, after we traded paint a few times in the home stretch.  Good, old-fashioned redneck fun.

Tallulah got some wonderful dresses, and a glittery princess crown and scepter.  We ended up shopping for cold-weather gear in Queenstown for a couple of hours.  During most of this time, I was a walking zombie: exhilarated, but physically shaking, and very, very tired.  Zola just wanted to go back and do more races.  Eventually, we made it back to our house, out for a very nice dinner, and now off to bed.  I don’t know how the kids felt about all of this.

This was a fun day.  Tomorrow we have jet boating, mountain biking, and something called a “funyak”  New Zealand is definitely growing on us.  

HOORAY! MOM AND DAD ARE STILL ALIVE!