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| Canyon
Swinging and a game of rugby |
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Dunedin, New Zealand
Saturday, Jun 12, 2004
04:25
Well it was
an early start for our canyon swing and my poor head wasn't exactly
happy at the prospect. We got picked up in Queenstown, along with
Josh from Oz, and we were driven out to the Shotover Canyon. We
had to walk out through the bush for a bit until we came to the
jump platform. Both myself and Claire had been terriefied at the
thought of doing a bungy jump but for some inexplicable reason the
thought of jumping off a platform 109m above the canyon floor was
a really exciting prospect.
We all got weighed and kitted out in our harnesses. When asked who
wanted to go first I was immediately volunteered which was probably
no bad thing given my track record with jumping off things. I was
linked up to to all the ropes etc and I was ready to go. The two
guys assisting me were great. They were chatting to me and trying
to keep me calm. They asked if I had done any other extreme sports
since arriving in New Zealand, so I told them all about my white
water sledging experience. They thought this was hysterically funny
and proceeded to tell me that I wasn't actually in New Zealand,
I was actually in Australia and for a split second....
Anyway, the canyon swing - the worlds highest swing - 109m (360ft).
After jumping you freefall into the canyon until the ropes smoothly
pendulum you in a giant arc at 150kph. No problem I thought I was
ready to go - I went to jump and chickened out. The second time
I was ready and just leapt and SCREAMED the whole way down (check
out the video clip attached). Once I reached the bottom I realised
that I was actually enjoying myself and I didn't actually need to
scream any more, woo-hoo seemed more appropriate. Claire went next
and let out a pathetic yelp and a couple of woo-hoos! Once I got
back up the guys told me it was one of the most spectacular screams
they'd ever heard!
We then began our long journey back to Dunedin which passed relatively
quickly as we sang and ate ice creams!
Back in Dunedin we just had enough time to grab some dinner before
we headed out to Carisbrook. I wanted to see a rugby game in New
Zealand before I left and what better game than England vs New Zealand.
We reached Carisbrook and made our way into the terraces. The game
started off not too badly, but it became very apparent, very quickly,
that England were no match for New Zealand. The game degenerated
rather quickly, if you could even call it a game. It got to the
stage where a mexican wave was started as the game was so bad (we
later found out that they always do mexican waves), which was quite
an experience in the terraces. As we were already standing we couldn't
obviously take part in the wave, instead anything that could be
thrown in the air, was thrown in the air, mainly beer cans, it was
quite a sight watching the wave coming towards us. Luckily we survived
unscathed. Unfortunately for us we were standing in front of a guy
who thought it would be hysterically funny to pee into a bottle
and spray it all over us - ha ha! Dead funny! Anyway after half
time (for those of you who missed the game the score at this point
was 33 - 3), we were entertained once again by a streaker painted
blue. He'd obviously painted himself before taking off his shorts
as he was unpainted under his shorts. He ran around the pitch for
quite a while before diving into the crowds and being caught! We
got a text from Nic at the end of the game to say "Tell Claire
England sucks". Claire knew this and was beginning to regret
her support of England (she is actually Welsh - she went on to support
New Zealand at the following match but more about that later). We
bumped into Helen (who we'd first met in the Catlins) and she had
reverted back to her welsh accent! Mmmmmm.
Anyway we headed into town preparing for a big night out - my last
in Dunedin :-( Unfortunately it was to turn out to be a rather disappointing
night as nobody came out and we were so tired from the previous
night that we ended up going home, albeit at one o'clock in the
morning. |
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