We arrived in Queenstown at 10am after the 2hr drive, but the activity we had booked wasn't until 1pm......plenty of time to chill. We headed for the frisbee golf course in the gardens, something I had been eyeing up on our last visit to Queenstown a couple of days ago. I guess to be correct I should probably call it disk golf as it is properly named, and as the people who had disk golf branded bags containing pockets for an assortment of frisbees probably nearly exactly the same, and a further pocket for the water bottle would have probably corrected us had they been given the chance. We avoided this group to prevent ourselves looking like fools and proceeded to play with the frisbees we had picked up in Te Anau yesterday, which Tash had insisted would be adequate. We quickly set about completing each par 3 'hole' in about 6 shots, greatly aided by the frisbees' ability to roll as its flying abilities were not up to much. A point demonstrated when after a few collisions with trees my frisbee was reduced to 3/4 of its original size, yet still flew about 85% as far as when it was new but with greatly dimisished rolling capabilities. A severe handicap. A draw was played out thanks to a three shot comeback in the last 3 holes, entirely due to swapping frisbees rather than skill......Time to chill was now severely restricted, and nearly up.
After lunch we hopped into the shuttle van which took us to Coronet Peak, 20 minutes out of Queenstown for our afternoon activity. After a brief weigh in, the pilots clipped on the harness and started unfolding the canopy of the tandom paragliders. At this point I was still pretty chilled, much to my surprise. I'm ok with heights when standing on something tall or in a plane....but I am not ok with heights when trusting my life to a bit of rope, or running off a mountain. Lucky for me these guys were of the 'no faff' variety and organised their tandom paragliders quicky and thoroughly, while explaining the basics regarding take off. This consisted of asking me to "walk when I tell you to walk and run when I tell you to run". I was STILL surprisingly chilled at this point.... Don't get me wrong, chilled is not the way to describe how I felt but surprisingly chilled definitely is. Andreas, my pilot is always third to take off, Tony was second, and had Tasha buckled to him.
Tash took off, and before Andreas had done his final few checks (or I'd had time to think) she was already 30ft above the take off site, circling with the guy who took off first. I was told to walk, so I walked, although mostly backwards as the canopy inflated, then I was told to run. This was what I had been nervous about, running off a mountain, it turns out I need not have worried because the running bit never really occurred as after 2 further steps forward there was nothing left to run on, we were up! ......Now was really the time to chill.
We soared around taking in the views of the Remarkables mountain range and lakes for a while, chatting about thermals and the 5hr flight Andreas had managed on his day off earlier in the week. Andreas all the time catching thermals to keep us high, he said he liked the sense of achievement from gliding higher than the take off site. Gradually we decended, well until and Andreas asked if we wanted to some acrobatics, I said yes dispite Tash and I agreeing beforehand we would not do anything so adventurous (turns out Tash also said yes to the same question!). We quickly lost height in a tight corkscrew, the horrizon turning vertical and beyond.
As we came into land, via another unexpected corkscrew, I could see a beaming Tasha on the landing field. It looked like we both had a good time! After heading back into Queenstown, we redeemed ourselves on the frisbee golf course managing some of the par 3's in 3 shots, this time with proper frisbees, and then headed to Arrowtown for a bit of an explore and to find the campsite. To top off the day I even offered to write the blog, something Tash has been trying to get me to do all holiday. I imagine this made her day. :-p
Mum and Dad, consider your christmas money well spent. Thanks!
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