Queenstown
Dave says:
If there’s one thing the kiwis know how to do well it’s remove at least $150 from your bank account without you seeming to care. Nowhere is this more evident than in the fair town of Queensland.
For those who have not been glued to their maps, Queenstown is way down south of the way down south island. Everything here is about extreme outdoors: bungy jumping (and it’s eight derivatives), parachuting, parasailing (and it’s three derivatives), canyoning, jet boating, off-road motorbikes and quads, 4wd off road jeeps, rafting, river surfing etc etc. The list goes on and on and on.
There are four types of retail establishment in this fairly large town: the booking office for all your extreme outdoor activities, the outdoor store where one may purchase equipment for the extreme outdoor activities, the T-shirt shop where one can buy a T-shirt saying you did the extreme outdoor activity and the bar where one goes to celebrate the completion of the extreme outdoor activity. That’s it… it’s a fairly succinct economy.
So today we went quad biking (or ATV’s for the americans amongst us). ATV’s (or quad bikes for the non-americans amongst us) are 250cc four wheel drive motorcycles. We were bussed out to the middle of beautiful nowhere, given ten minutes instruction and then hit the trail. Off roading up hill and down valley through mud, rivers and gullies all in the name of wondering if the end of your life was near. Its a blast and Sarah proved herself to be a 4wd vixen. Nothing can stop this girl when she want to cross a river or drive through four foot of mud. Not wanting to be upstaged the author nearly tipped his quad bike off a bridge into the raging torrent below (ok, ok, it was a little stream but I would have got really wet).
Upon our return we supported the Queenstown economy further by going for a few beers to celebrate our near brush with the brush. Pictures will follow at the next upload point.
Don’t forget to check out our first gallery and our second gallery and our third gallery and our forth gallery and our fifth gallery and our sixth gallery and our seventh gallery and all our extreme sports mad stuff.