Couple weeks ago, I visited town called Queenstown. It was a very beautiful place with a lot of sightseeing things to do, and I had a lot of fun spending couple days there. 

As Queenstown is a huge city place, we decided to not camp out and get an Airbnb so that we could really enjoy the weekend. We really liked having our own place as we were able to shower and cook and such. Once we arrived, we unpacked our things and chilled outside by the patio while having a little bit of wine and music.

Canyoning

On Friday, we woke up early in the morning and drove 20 minutes to the city to do canyoning. Canyoning is a type of activity where you travel in canyons using variety of techniques such as rapelling, swimming, climbing, jumping, etc. After checking in, we got into their bus to drive to Bob’s Cove to get suit up. (Personal opinion only but) Trying to put on a wet suit was the hardest thing I did the whole morning. It was different from other wetsuits in that it had a lot of rubber fabric along with neoprene, which made it so much harder to put it on. It also felt weird to do anything in it because it was so hard to move around with it. It was such a struggle…

After getting everything situated in preparation of the activity, we drove to the 12 Mile Creek to actually start our canyoning process. First activity we did was repelling, which involved going down a cliff by using ropes to lower myself. The cliff was about 30 feet, and it was really scary to descend a vertical drop cliff while only trusting the guide and the rope. Although it was intimidating at first, I was able to successfully lower myself to the bottom of the cliff. Afterwards, we did a water sliding activity. Now, water sliding sounds like a fun thing to do when you’re in a theme park, but when you’re out in nature right after a whole day of pouring rain, it can be really scary as the current is very fast. The “waterslide” that we did was about 10 feet drop where we start out as a slide but basically fall down vertically into a pool of water. The impact was surprisingly strong as the water dragged me down to the bottom of the pool. The current was so fast and so strong that when I swam towards the guide, I missed her hand and went through another waterfall due to this. It was so scary because I didn’t expect for that to happen (and I also managed to hit my head onto a rock during this – thankfully I was wearing my safety helmet!) During this whole process, I also couldn’t breathe out of my nose at all because so much water went up through my sinus from the impact that I couldn’t even blow it out. After the second (unexpected) waterfall, I somehow surprisingly managed to grab onto a boulder to save myself from going through yet another waterfall and getting into more serious trouble. The guide came to rescue me in matter of a minute – which felt so long. Although it was a nerve wrecking experience that was unexpected, I didn’t want it to stop me from enjoying the rest of the experience. Therefore… I voluntarily decided to do cliff jumping after about 5 minutes later haha. I rock climbed up about 15 feet up and jumped straight out of the cliff into the water. I’ve never done anything this spontaneous before, and it was an amazing experience! Although it was daunting at first when I was at the top of the cliff, I jumped off without any hesitation! I most definitely didn’t regret doing the activity at all. Afterwards, we did some more minor stuff such as swimming, jumping, and another repelling. After couple hours, our time came to an end. Canyoning was such a unique opportunity, and I loved doing it so much!

Bungee Jumping

After a long, exhausting but fun morning at canyoning, we came back to our place and ate some lunch and recharged up in preparation for bungee jumping. I wasn’t thinking too much of the fact that I’M JUMPING OFF OF A 43 METER BRIDGE when I originally signed up for it. However, I started realizing that I was going to do bungee jumping in matter of hours and started to freak out a bit. It felt as if I signed my life away – it was pretty wild. To make my situation better, I was put on the last spot to jump off as my weight was less than everyone else’s so they had to change out the bungee cord. To be honest, I was TERRIFIED to wait for my turn. Like who thought this was a good idea to put me, put ME as the last spot?!

As I waited “patiently” for my turn, I was able to see all of my friends jump off of the bridge, one by one disappearing in front of my own eyes; it became more and more scary as my turn slowly came. After seeing my last friend jump off, I started freaking out for the jump. I was up there all by myself and I was about to do the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life. However, I wanted to face my fears and shook out all the anxiety in me.

The crew strapped me into the safety gear and asked if I wanted to be dunked into the water. Since I was interested in it, I told him that I wanted the ‘full experience’. When he heard that, he put a mischievous smile on his face and said, ‘oh we’ll make sure of that’. In short time, I was on the platform ready to jump. Walking out to the end of the platform was so scary as I had nothing to hold onto and no one to trust other than myself and the crew member. While I was on the platform, I was able to see my friends all cheering for me and that gave me confidence.

The crew started counting off: “Five! Four! Three! Two! One!” and once I heard the number 1, i jumped without any hesitation. I screamed “YOLO” as I fell (which probably isn’t something that people want to hear when I’m falling for my life haha). Although it was matter of probably 1 second before I reached the water, it felt as if I was falling for at least 10 seconds as I had time to jump, close my eyes, open my eyes as I realized I was STILL falling, and then close my eyes once again to brace myself for the impact of the water. The sensation of falling was nothing like I imagined before – I could truly feel gravity for the first time in my life, and it was WILD. The impact of touching the water wasn’t as hard as I imagined; it was actually really refreshing. I continued to move up and down until I eventually reached a stopping point and got pulled down to the boat. When I got out, I was SOAKED! Unlike my other friends who were only wet varying from their shoulder to chest, I was wet all the way down to my thighs. It was a crazy experience. 

After bungee jumping, we went to another cliff jumping place called the Little Thailand. I wasn’t feeling adventurous with this one, as I already used up all of my craziness/wildness for the month so I just watched my friends jump off of the cliff.

After a long day filled with insane activities, we went back to Queenstown to get some dinner. We went to a burger place called Devils Burger. Nick and I did ordered different burgers so that we could split it and taste two different burgers. He ordered devils burger and I ordered devils staircase and both burgers were SO GOOD. It was a nice treat yourself type of meal after exhausting yet fun day. We walked around the town for a short bit and came back to our place to rest.

Overall, I was very content as I was able to face my fears (of heights and falling) this weekend and LIVE through it. 10/10 experience 🙂