Breathtaking Queenstown

I have been here for only a few hours but I am already slightly in love with Queenstown.

The chilled-out atmosphere and laid back surroundings just seem to fit me so much better than the hustle and bustle of the big city that was Auckland. Added to that is the fact that this place is incredibly beautiful! I mean “best place I have seen in my life” beautiful!

As I type this up right now I am sat on a fine pebble beach on the coast of the lake as the sun starts to set. The sun has gone down behind one of the mountains turning it a little chilly, but sat here looking across the lake everything is still so alive. The mountains are slowly turning golden as the sun starts to set in the distance so even though we are in shadow the view is still amazing.

Everyone his gathered around to watch all of the para-gliders and hand-gliders come down from the top of the mountain. There are hundreds of people here sat relaxing and chilling out watching the show, drinking beer and having a good time. By the looks of it about every 5 mins another one seems to be jumping off the top and then making their decent, attempting to land on a floating platform out in the lake. So far at least 20 have come down so far with the para-gliders landing on the mark and the handgliders making a bit more of a scene and ditching in the water before being rescued by the boats. It is a bit hairier for them since they are completely strapped to the bit metal frame so when they hit the water it is a bit more of a rescue then for the para-gliders who just swim about for a bit.

As I have just written that last paragraph I have just witness something amazing and shocking that took by breath away! Firstly one of the para-gliders decided he didn’t want to land on the pad in the lake and instead came all the way in slowly and touched down right on the edge of the fully packed beach. The crowd went wild and it was a true show of skill… That wasnt the amazing thing. Just after he landed a hand-glider decided to come in and do the same. Now the worst case scenario with a para-glider is that you get hit by a person attached to a big sheet. Hand-gliders are a bit different. With their massive metal frames, when one of those comes at you you take a moment to rethink your life! The pilot came in directly towards the beach which made everyone go silent and the smart people start to scatter a bit before suddenly she turned sharply to cut across the front of the beach by the shore. Please bear in mind that I am sat about 20ft from said shore typing away on a laptop when I hear silence fall and start to take note. After the sharp turn she rocketed across the shoreline about 5ft off the ground and unfortunately got a bit of wind under the wing causing her not to stop and head straight for boat that was pulled up onto the beach as well as a group of people who were sat on the beach in front of me. They didn’t even have time to run away and had to just lay flat on the beach and pray as the hand-glider came over their head and crashed into the beach a few seconds later. I have never seen 400 people collectively hold their breath before however this was certainly one of those times and a time I am not going to forget any time soon. Hopefully someone got it on camera and I will be able to find it online soon as that was seriously crazy stuff! I really don’t know how there weren’t any injuries or fatalities!

Everyone here seems to be here to have fun in one form or another and you can almost feel it in the air. It has more of the community feel that was missing from Auckland but I guess that is what you get for a much smaller place that’s main this is tourism and action sports. Everyone seems to be into the same things so everyone can get along much easier. There are even a lot of Kiwi’s here who have moved from other parts of NZ so even the local people are not truly local.

Earlier as I was having a walk about I also saw a Jet walker in the bay that was also an amazing site. The woman riding it basically had 2 massive water jet attached to her feet kicking water out at the same sort of power as a fire hose with a big pipe coming down to a jet ski that’s motor and engine was providing the power for her to move about as she pleased. It was such a show to watch as she seemed almost weightless as she danced 15ft above the water, suspended by the jets coming from her feet. She was twisting and turning like it was the most natural thing in the world, while somehow seeming to hold perfect balance all the way through. Occasionally she would lean all the way forwards and dive into the water before flying back out again like a dolphin jumping through the water. I managed to get a video of it so I will get it uploaded as soon as I actually have a decent internet connection.

Even from the plane in the middle of the day this place seemed beautiful and now in the evening, as the sun starts to set that has been re-confirmed for me. The water is clear, the lake is stunning and the surroundings seem to be perfect. As I landed I text’d CB saying “Wow, I’m not even out of the airport yet and this place is beautiful”. He responded with “Yeah… and where I live is even better”. I really cant wait to see more of the real New Zealand. Auckland was just a stop over, somewhere to land and have a wander but it wasn’t really me. I had some time to relax there but it wasn’t somewhere I would have ever considered living. I could totally live somewhere like this though. Somewhere that I can relax in an evening and look out of the window at an amazing site.

Tomorrow it is onwards towards Milford Sound to see what that has in store. That is world renowned for being pretty so I’m sure we will see some beautiful sites. Honestly cant wait to get started with this adventure properly!