90 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVELLER INDIA | MAY 2018
THE DESTINATIONQUEENSTOWN
FRIGHT AND FLIGHT
It hasn’t been an hour
since I left Queenstown
airport, and I’m standing
141 feet above a gorge, feet
tied with a thick cord. I
have never felt such primal,
wild terror, not like this; not
once in 31 years of life. It
swells and shape-shifts with
every second I spend on this
ledge above the Kawarau
River. I will fall and smash
my skull; I will projectile
vomit. Finally, the one fear
sticks—I will have a heart
attack, and hang limply
mid-air. The cord feels like
tentacles tightening around
my chest.
I’d vowed never to bungee
jump, but planning a trip
to the “world’s adventure
capital” gave me a false sense
of bravado. Commercial
bungee jumping was
invented here in 1988, at
A.J. Hackett’s Kawarau
Bridge Bungy Centre, and I
didn’t want to be a chicken.
Up on that ledge above theriver, I wasn’t impervious to
the beauty around me. The
waters sparkled even in the
wan winter sun; rust-gold
tussock on the cliff face
held memories of a glorious
autumn. Finally, I closed my
eyes and jumped.
I leap to the sound of
applause from onlookers
across the bridge, and fall
with the grace of a rag
doll. My stomach lurches
up—actually, down—to
my throat. Yet when my
fingers dip into the river, I
whoop gleefully, for I have
touched the icy water of a
glacier carved in the Ice Age,
15,000 years ago.
In Queenstown, the
drama begins long before
touchdown. From the skies
you see a city sprawled on
the basin of Lake Wakatipu,
which means “hollow of the
sleeping giant.” According
to a Maori legend, the
S-shaped lake flows in
the hole left behind afterThe Kawarau River bungee is the
world’s first commercial bungee
site. Visitors jump above the
emerald waters flowing through
the steep Kawarau Gorge.Matau, an evil giant,
was set afire by a local
warrior out to rescue his
beloved from his clutches.
Jagged and gigantic, The
Remarkables mountain
range has risen around the
lake for millennia, dwarfing
everything in its wake.
Sensational landscapes
shape Queenstown, but it
is adrenaline that stokes its
fire. En route to the town
centre, cabbie Ian Paddle
tells me he came here to
honeymoon from Australia
three decades ago and never
went back. “Which other
city lets you walk on
glaciers, fall from airplanes,
swing through canyons,
and race across rivers in a
jetboat? You can now have
a chopper fly you up The
Remarkables, and come
down skiing or biking—isn’t
that amazing?”
(www.bungy.co.nz; children
aged 10-14 NZD155/`7,450,
adults NZD205/`9,850.)DANITA DELIMONT/GALLO IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES(BUNGEE JUMP)FACING PAGE: PHOTO COURTESY:NOMAD SAFARIS(CAR)