Queenstown - adrenaline on ice, air and water

Queenstown. You know how in London and other cities there are bronze statues of notable people or icons, say Nelson in Trafalgar Square, or the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen? Queenstown instead has a guy cuddling a ram. Maybe it used to be a farm. It's about the size of a very large one. Or maybe two. But it's packed and teeming with every kind of adrenaline rush you can find, be it heli-skiing/boarding (taking a helicopter to otherwise unreachable peaks and hurtling down on one or two bits of wood) shooting down the river on a 180km speedboat, bungy jumping or sky diving. A far cry from sheep based activities.

After skiing at Cardrona, I decided to take a few snowboarding lessons in Remarkables while Matt went tramping (what the locals call hiking) around the town. Unlike anywhere else I've skied, Remarks has amazing views right from the base camp, and the weather up there was superb, great powder and great sunshine.

Remarkables from base camp - the white below the cloud is more cloud covering Queenstown

My first two lessons, both on the same day, went rather well, to the point where the cute blonde New Yorker who was taking the lesson took me up to the first chairlift and helped me out coming down my first green run. Boarding actually does feel more free than skiing, but it's completely different (surprisingly) and my third lesson (where I was told to jump 2 levels) took me down some blue runs. Mostly on my arse, head, shoulder or wrist. I did stack it impressively at least twice, both times cartwheeling on my head. Quite a skill, but it wasn't intended. I'm now black and blue in a number of places, but great fun nonetheless.

As you can see from the last post, we also did the Nevis Sky Arc and Bungy, but they speak for themselves.

If you're not into the whole 10 second adrenaline rush, you can either take a 15 minute tandem paraglide from the Ledge, or chill at one of a zillion bars, pool halls, cafes or restaurants. Each evening we headed down for a few beers, taking in a pub crawl or two, and meeting some random people. This included one guy who we found smoking a spark plug. When asked what was in it, he said it was weed, that he'd grown himself. Turns out he works on films, supplying the vehicles, and the last one he worked on was Wolverine. Apparently he shared a spliff with Hugh Jackman. I also entered a free poker tournament which was pretty damn popular. By 1am we were down to the last 8, and I came 3rd. Pitty you only won bar tabs for 1st and 2nd place...!

We're now in Te Anau, about to take a trip to Milford Sound tomorrow. It's boring here, to put it bluntly, everything was closed at 6pm, and there were literally five people on the high street. With some luck tomorrow will be awesome, and then we're off to Dunedin. Cue Lord of the Rings Soundtrack....