Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Canyon Swing

Krisanne and I thought it would be fun to do the Canyon Swing.

Bungee-jumping never really appealed (except to be able to say "yes I would!" to the question "if your friends jumped off a bridge would you do it too?"), but the canyon swing looked interesting.

It was rainy and cool in the morning, and we were having second thoughts. Freefalling for 60 meters followed by a 200 meter swing arc sounded less appealing in the windy rain. But, I decided to go anyway and at 9:15 a.m. I left Eric and Krisanne at the coffee shop and ran to the hostel to pick up my voucher and call for directions.

As I was reaching for the phone, the desk moved. Seconds later, a longer tremor shook us and I realized we just felt an earthquake.

I'm a minor thrill seeker, but I am also willing to back down in the face of an Act of God. So, I cancelled my canyon swing plan on the spot, forfeiting the deposit, but realizing I wouldn't have any fun thinking if the cables needed to be checked, etc.

Instead, Eric and I hiked up from the city to the gondola base. It took us about an hour and a half, but we also wound up taking a 30 minute detour to a log avalance and decided not to negotiate that. At the top, we met Krisanne at the top, warmed up with coffee and then rode down and left for a long drive to Fox Glacier.

Queenstown

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