We were back in town by 7:30 the next day and the boys were off to book their tour and Beata and I went to the tourist office to se what we wanted to do.  I knew I wanted to do the Shotover Canyon Swing since it looked unique.  I had already bungee jumped and been white water rafting and wanted to do something new. I had never seen anything like it, so I knew I wanted to try it.  Beata wanted to try bungee jumping but since everything was so incredibly overpriced in Queenstown she decided to only do one thing and that was also the Canyon Swing since she could bungee jump elsewhere for cheaper.

Me hugging the Queenstown Kiwi

So we paid an exorbitant amount and got ready for our jump.  They weighed us and drew pictures on our hands to symbolize our weight instead of having a number and being embarrassed.  My picture was of a decapitated stick figure falling into a canyon with blood pouring from the neck which made me feel very secure.  Beata’s was a snail, so apparently light people (since she is half my size) got cheery pictures, and I was jealous.  They took us by bus basically back towards the campsite and then to the location of the swing.  We had to walk to the platform and along the way were garden gnomes with little sayings, it was cute.
We put on our harnesses and when it was our turn we got to choose which style we were going to jump since there were many different ways.  I chose the “pin drop” which meant that I was just supposed to step off the platform and fall straight down feet first.  I had a very hard time forcing myself to step off the edge to plummet down since it is so unnatural to hop into a canyon.  The attendants refused to push me and kept making jokes which was good because it was stress relieving.  I finally jumped and it was over way too soon, I hardly knew what happened.  It was way worse just standing on the platform.
I wanted to do my second jump upside down where you would hang upside down and they would cut you loose and you’d fall but when I came up to the platform for my second jump I was told I was doing the “Chair of Death.”  I asked whether I could chose my own method of jumping and they said, ‘no’ and brought out the chair which was three plastic chairs stacked on top of each other and I was seat-belted to them.
“Won’t I look ridiculous with a plastic chair dangling from my ass down there?” I asked the attendant.
“Yes, I don’t know why you chose the death chair.”  I was supposed to lean back in the chair and topple over backwards.  Again, I couldn’t do it on my own and had a bit of help to tilt me over the edge and I did a back flip off the platform with a chair seat-belted to my bum.  I enjoyed the second jump more since I knew falling wasn’t too bad and it was cool to flip.

Then we went to Ferg Burgers and I don’t usually write about food but this is the best burger place ever and I had an amazing tofu burger, so when we met up with the boys and learned they went to McDonald’s I couldn’t help but make fun of them, but they didn’t care because they were too busy gloating because they thought they were superman after doing the Nevis bungee jump.

Beata Canyon Swinging

Coincidentally, they were white water rafting just when Beata was doing her Canyon Swing.  I had taken pictures of some of the rafts but since we thought they were rafting in the afternoon I didn’t pay too much attention to them, so I had every raft photographed but theirs because I was taking pictures of Beata just when their raft was going by and they still hold a grudge.