My intention all along was to do the thing I'm least afraid of first so I can see if I like it and then do the other things. For some reason jumping out of a plane is less scary then jumping off a Canyon or a Bridge. There will be no skydiving today and the next days activity is Canyon Swing at 5:20pm. Great, I have 11 hours to be scared shitless. I head back to bed but can't sleep.
It's 11am Little Jake is getting restless having just finished his morning routine. What would that routine be? Why clipping his nails. I hear click, click, click through my headphones and I look over and see Little Jake at the edge of the bed clipping away. I think to myself I hope he is disposing his nail fragments in the garbage. I try to go back to sleep thinking he'll be done in 5 minutes. 45 minutes latter and this man is still clipping!! Jesus Jake, do you do formal manis and pedis? I give up and awake.
Jake sees me and his morning questions begin. Little Jake likes to begin every morning with the exact same three questions of which I politely answer everytime but question whether he understands my answers as I know I will hear the same three tomorrow. The three questions are, "You must come to my city Shanghai" "You bungy?" "Can we do facebook" Yes, yes, and yes Jake and now I need to get ready.
As I'm sitting at the edge of my bed putting on my shoes I look down at the floor. OMG, there is a graveyard of about a 100 little nail fragments! Little Jake forgot to use the waste basket. Jake is in the shower I tell Brad. He says, "Mate we got to do something that's disgusting!" I didnt have the heart to say anything to Jake he was so excited to start the day. I prayed housekeeping would vaccum our floors.
We grab the shuttle into Queenstown to grab lunch at the famous "Ferg Burger". What is Ferg Burger it is the best hamburger in New Zealand as claimed by our driver Pumba and many of his countrymen. Ferg Burger had been hyped for many days prior so I have high expectations. Walking to Ferg Burger Brad stops in a store and Little Jake follows him in. Brad tries to explain to Jake he will meet us at Ferg Burger. Poor Brad I think he just needed a little break.
Jake, I, and couple other people arrive at Ferg Burger and the line is out the door. Their menu consists of about 12 different burgers. One burger called the Big Al consists of 2 half pound patties, 2 eggs, and bacon. Can you say heart attack? I opt for the Tropical swine, 1 patty, pineapple, beetroot, and bacon. Two things stand out, 1 in New Zealand and also Australia they put beetroot in almost every sandwich and burger, 2 their bacon is different it is more of the canadian bacon variety. The burger is served on a huge fresh baked bun. I take a bite, it's good. Is it the best burger I ever had? Probably not, but it's the best burger I have had on the trip.
Their Famous Menu
"Do you mind if I have a sip of your tasty beverage to wash this burger down" - Name that Movie?
Little Jake Tackles The Big AL!
I finish lunch at 1:00pm, damn it another 4 hrs and 20 minutes to go of terror. I head off on my own to kill sometime. I meet up with Brad to watch him bungy jump off "The Ledge". The Ledge is a bungy that's off the cliff from the top of the skyline gondola. The man is crazy but his love of adrenaline certainly has pressured me to do crazy things. Thanks mate! Brad does two jumps, the first a summersault, the second a hand stand. He loves both of them. Sorry Brad I will not be joining you today I have Canyon Swing in 2 hrs and I already have soiled myself (Just Kidding!)
This is what Brad jumped off of, man is crazy!
We head to Canyon Swing to catch the shuttle that will take me to my jump or shall I say swing of death. Immediately our driver begins his routine of scaring the crap out of us. He says, "You're my first group!" "We have not had any accidents, YET this week" "I'm still learning how to harnass people". Thanks bro, do you just want me to breakdown right here in the van? He puts on a video of all the crazy jumps/swings people have done. You can go frontwards, backwards, sitting in a chair, flipping, upside down. You name it they will let you do it. I opt for the sitdown self pull which means I will be sitting down then I will pull a red cord that will release myself into a terrifying 60 meter free fall followed by a 200 meter arc swing. Canyon Swing is the tallest canyon swing jump in the world YAY!
The van arrives and we walk down to the Canyon Swing along this steep ravine. As we are walking down Bill and Krista are walking up from Wisconsin. They have big smiles on their face. They say, "Ahh, you're going to love it!" I say nothing.
I'm quiet Im not saying much my mind is going a mile a minute. What the F am I doing here? Am I crazy? Let's get this over with. What if my harnass breaks? I'm sorry Little Jake for getting you drunk the other night. Graham and Quinn get ready for your inheritance.
Brad and the other 2 Aussie tour mates go before me. They all say you're going to love it. Now it's my turn, shit! The guys strap me up and they can see I'm extremely nervous so they opt to be nice to me. Thanks Canyon Swing people. BTW, the Canyon Swing people are notorious for screwing with people. They will push you off before you're ready. Tell you the harnass is broke right before they release you. Count down from 5 and pull it early at 4. Since I'm self pulling they really cannot mess with me much and when they see my face they immediately play the parenting role. "It will be alright, we've never had accident before, you're going to love it". Where the hell did you people come from, this is certainly not what I've seen in your videos?
I'm strapped in and they dangle me out over a 100M cliff. The guy tells me to pull the red cord when I'm ready. What I didn't hear him tell me was to hold onto the red cord. 3-2-1 pull, Oh fuck!!! My stomach immediatly goes to my throat as my eyes are closed during the free fall. I open them and now I'm in full swing mode. WOW! I made it YES YES YES! The red cord I was supposed to hold onto is now somewhere in the river below. Oh well!
Below are the videos enjoy. WARNING many f-bombs are at play in this video so if you have children mute it and if you cannot appreciate what pure terror looks like, don't watch:
Official video, kids cover your ears!
Brad's version filming from the lookout point:
A little post Canyon Swing interview. I look like a dear caught in headlights:
Yes I did and it was incredible and yes I would do it again, but now I'm going to relax on a nice bean bag. 1 terror over and 1 more to go in a couple of days with Bungy.
We head back to the hotel and I get ready for dinner and head out for Sushi with Therese, Laura, and Kat. Except the place we went to didn't have sushi but rather they had teppenaki. We quickly finish because we have to meet the rest of the group at Minus 5. A bar in Queenstown completely made out of ice even your cocktails are served in ice glasses.
We meet up with the rest of our tour mates and they outfit us in full on parkas to keep us warm from the freezing temperatures of the bar. We walk in and music is blarring and the cocktails start flowing. Little Jake is so excited he can hardly contain himself. His camera is going off left and right and little Jake starts drinking with the rest of us. Many drinks later and it's time to move to the next bar.
We head across the way and the dancing continues. I failed to mention that when we started this tour Bridget our tour manager declared a theme song for our tour. Our theme song is "Wild Ones" by Flo rider and Sia. Everytime this song comes on our group goes bonkers. Needless to say it comes on but this time we are all plastered. That's when Little Jake graduated from timid chinese student to stud muffin dancing machine.
The song starts and Jake jumps into the middle of thr group. The girls start yelling and Little Jake breaks out into his own free style dance of chops, kicks, and spins. Everyone is going nuts. Where did this guy come from? At one point Jake gets on top of some benches on the dance floor and leaps off into a Karate kick. Unfortunately his kick is deadly accurate as it is a direct hit on one of the girl's cocktails she is holding in her hand. The cocktail goes flying 10 feet and Brad and I are on the floor dying of laughter. Jake doesn't miss a beat and keeps on dancing. Except now Little Jake will only dance in the middle of the circle and stays there the rest of the night. Pure entertainment!
We get back to the hotel and Brad and I stay up talking with Jake all night. One of the best conversations ever. Will fill you in sometime.
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