And I'm still afraid of heights.

I didn't blog yesterday so we need to do a bit of back-tracking.

A little history on this trip. The whole thing is Emmabat's fault. :-D When she posted the video of the Nevis Swing to my FB wall a few month's back with a caption saying I *had* to try it, I decided she was very smart and totally right. And as usual, once I get a travel idea, not much time passes before I put it into action. I personally would've chosen to go in a month or so's time but when I told work I wanted a week off, they asked if I could please do it before November. Terrible hardship, that. I ever so graciously obliged them. And here we are.

Wednesday was pony riding day, as you all saw. I had oodles of fun. The day got off to the worst possible start in the sense that I didn't have my morning latte. Dart Stables were picking me up from my hotel/motel thing and I'm far enough out of town to not be able to grab a quick coffee easily. It'd be a half hour round trip and given my not-so-love of early mornings, there is no way I was going to get up half an hour early. Even for coffee. Such are the complexities of my life. So I went off for my ride sans latte. It was a very pretty trip out to Glenorchy with a stop along the way to take photos over Lake Wakatipu. Lake Wakatipu is the longest lake in New Zealand and at its deepest, is something stupid like nearly 400m deep. This makes it very cold and very fresh. A comfortable 10 degrees celsius pretty much all year round. Brisk.

We arrived at Dart Stables and those of us doing the Trilogy Loop were taken care of first as our ride was to go for the longest. Turns out there were only two of us doing that ride. Everyone else was on one of the slightly less "pacey" rides. Suits me! These things always go better when there are less riders. The other woman doing the ride with me was a German lady who I think works or has worked at stables in Germany. She was a capable rider. A young girl took us out to our horses and I was introduced to Charlie. Big hairy bay thing of Cleveland Bay breeding. The girl said he didn't go from voice and I should use my leg. No worries. She said he also didn't like mouth contact. Interesting.

Our guide Shelly then came out and got on Prince, an off the track thunderbred that was still in training. He is brown and enjoys weaving around on the track and spooking in his spare time. Shelly was riding him as he'd been bucking the workers off and despite being thoroughly checked out, continues to piff people off who bounce around on his back. So Shelly did mostly two-point work on him.

The trilogy loop ride is for very experienced riders only. And Shelly told us how strict they are about it. Only the day before the manager had thrown someone off the ride and put her in a lower paced group. Apparently the woman in question was very annoyed but proof was in the pudding. She couldn't ride as well as she thought, and Shelly said the trilogy loop ride is a "riders" ride. If you can't call yourself a horse rider, you are not welcome. And I like the policy. When Kaff, Vicious, Flight and I went to Jindabyne two years ago, our ride was considerably less enjoyable because of the beginners they tacked onto the group who couldn't point their horses forward to save themselves. And we had to spend a lot of time sitting around waiting for them instead of galloping up mountains. :-D So, well done Dart Stables on catering to experienced riders and sticking to the policy. :-)

If you've read the video link thread, you'll have read that Charlie is an ex-dressage horse. Not sure how great he was. He was certainly responsive and didn't give me much grief but he did bore through my hands. Not huge fun for my still busted shoulder but it wasn't unbearable. It was probably worse for him because I figured out part way through the ride I was probably in a 16" saddle and couldn't get into the saddle when he was cantering and had to use a lot more hand than I like. He also had some sort of breathing issue. I wouldn't quite call him a roarer but along those lines. Anyway, he had loads of stamina and bravely plowed through the flowing rivers.

What I did figure out - fortunately fairly quickly - was that the first young girl didn't know much about English riding. Because Charlie was much happier once I took up a proper contact. He would still snatch reins and as you saw on the video, once I let him have his head, he would object at the moment I took it back, but he didn't carry on. He was quite a good boy, all said and done. We went for lots and lots of canters and a few nice trots. The scenery, as you've all noticed, is very speccy. Those mountains in the background aren't The Remarkables. They're something else, but Peter Jackson did use them (as well as The Remarkables and one other) to create the Misty Mountains.

There is another trail ride that goes to some of the actual settings from the movie but they don't go fast enough for me. :-P

Which brings me to Wednesday afternoon. As you also know from the video, I went Paragliding. I had originally booked to do this on Monday but the weather on Monday went to the dogs and they only run this during perfect weather. So I had to shuffle it around and hope for the best. Wednesday, fortunately, was perfect. I headed up with two other customers, both kiwis, and our three "pilots". As with all the other adrenalin industries around here, they trash talked us all the way up. I ended up with a guy called Ian because I said I wanted a "thrill" ride. I know, shocking, right? And Ian delivered. Paragliding is lots easier than I'd have thought, in terms of getting us off the ground. I expected a big safety drill and oodles of instructions but it went something like this. "Just walk down the hill with me. I'll be right behind you. If I need you to, I'll ask you to take a couple of steps back. Otherwise, just keep walking until the ground drops away." And that's exactly what happened. We trundled towards the steep drop of the slope... and up we went. Just like that. :-) My mother could do it, and that's really saying something. (She is slightly less of an adrenalin junkie than me.)

Ian and I were the last to take off out of the three, but it worked in our favour as we hit a nice big thermal and actually got some lifts and ended up getting minutes longer out of our flight for it. The only reason we landed at the same time as the others is because I asked him to give me some thrills and you lose a lot of elevation doing them. The video doesn't quite capture the full effect of what he did. It's called a spiral dive and is one of the most skilled moves they can do. And it is just like it sounds. He banked it in to the left and spiralled in so hard we were pretty much horizontal. Now out of all the crazy things I've done here, THAT was actually the one that went closest to making me feel a bit off-kilter. It pulls a lot of G's doing the spiral. We did a couple of them, then swung from side to side a few times before coming in to land. Landing was every bit as easy as taking off. Ian brought us down and just told me when to stand up. Done.

After this was all done, I still felt a bit blurk so lay down on the grass in the sun for a while as they packed up. I figured out pretty quickly what was wrong. Sunstroke. :-( I do succumb to it occasionally and despite the cold temps here still that require a warm jacket and a couple of layers under at nearly all times, they have even less ozone here than we do in Sydney and the sun really bites. And it got me bad yesterday. Lots of sun, not enough coffee, not enough water, hours of physical activity and some G forces. Bam. Got me. Once I got out of the sun and back in the van I felt a bit better but still not superwoman. I even asked them if they could drop me at my hotel instead of in town. I couldn't face the "hill of death" feeling like that.

I managed to have a good sleep though and was fighting fit for today. My Tuesday afternoon activity that got cancelled due to weather was rescheduled for first thing this morning. I knew from the minute I arrived at the office at 8am that it wouldn't go ahead, though. Another southerly was coming in and it was windy. Suspicions confirmed, I headed off in search of other adventures. Now, I really did enjoy my Canyon Swings on Monday. :-D And if I kept my wrist band they said I could come back and jump again for $35 on any available spots. So back I went and they squished me in. :-) The Brazilian git was there but the other two guys were different. Because I had jumped before, there was no way these guys were going to let me do an "easy" jump. Although it's hard to top a "5 undies" backward leap off the platform. Unless you're me. And then you will find jumping forwards off the platform way harder. They might class it as "2 undies" but for me it was at least "7 undies". I really can't speak highly enough of the guys at Canyon Swing. Sure, they do lots of clowning around and dummy drops on the people that can handle it, and they even did it to me on my first go when I did the cut-away drop. But if you tell them you're genuinely scared and want to be helped over, they'll do it and they do it so well. Once again, I'm very proud to say, after making it to the edge (OK, so I inched my way there but I still did it) I stepped off first attempt. They held my arm or my harness all the way so I felt very secure until the moment I went over. Great guys. And holy sugar plums, WHAT A RUSH!!! One of the hardest things I've ever done, but as usual, I had a massive grin on my face as I did it. I'm not sure I can describe it. I was petrified nearly solid on the edge but once I knew the time had come to jump, I shut down part of my brain. I just stopped all the noise at the second I decided I WAS going to go over. And while I remember deciding to do it, I don't clearly remember the feeling of going over. Maybe because it happened so freaking fast. Cartoons would lead you to believe there's a moment of pause at the beginning of every downward plunge but this is totally not true. You are falling the moment that leading foot doesn't find ground under it. I also remember them giving me instructions about which direction I had to step and even though taking the step was very conscious, I don't remember if I did it right. (The guys assured me after I got it perfectly.) But it was weird the bits I do and don't recall between my utter terror and total calm.

After that, I went back for another try at my cancelled event and this time it nearly went through but was called off at the last minute. Argh! I've now rebooked it for Saturday as I think tomorrow is going to be a bit dodge as well.

Then this afternoon came the original dare that started this whole trip. :-D The Nevis Swing. The largest swing in the world. It is the biggest - at 120m high - and the fastest. It has something crazy like a 300m arc on it. And you DROP for 70m before you start to swing out. The hardest part for me? Walking out to it!!!! The drop house is itself suspended above the canyon floor and you have to cross a 70m footbridge - THAT MOVES - to get to it. I did not enjoy that bit and it didn't set me up very well to not be nervous before my swing.

Unlike the Canyon Swing, the Nevis is a swing only and they operate it. There are no creative flying leaps, slides, chairs or any of that. They're stricter and more serious. Which also didn't help my nerves, oddly. They also wouldn't let me use my GoPro harness so in the end, I attached it to my helmet strap and wrapped it around my hand a few times. When you see the video, if my left hand looks weird, that's why. It had the GoPro in it.

I had originally planned to do both the Nevis Swing and the Nevis Bungy but as it turns out, I saw my ophthalmologist on Friday, just before leaving, and he asked that I *not* bungy. Everything else was fine, but not that. I already have a retinal weakness in my left eye and he said I ran a higher risk of detaching my retina. No big deal. Once I got to Queenstown I just changed my booking to two swings instead. :-) Another positive about this place. All the companies are really good at working together to reschedule people. This weather stuff happens a lot at certain times of year and I've found nearly everyone to be incredibly helpful in making sure all my activities happen.

So I get kitted up for the Nevis Swing and I have a look over the edge. It. Is. So. Far. Down. I didn't so much get the shakes as they just increased. At least here no one was going to make me jump off the damned thing. I was hooked up to everything then asked to sit down. I sat. Slowly. And was then lifted out above the canyon floor. Right about now, Emmabat is probably remembering exactly how this felt and also all the swearing she did. :-D Unlike the Canyon Swing, Nevis makes a big metallic clunking sound as you are released. And that DROP!!!!! Ye gods!!!! You just fall forever. To the point that it's hard to tell when you start actually swinging. By the time you start to arc on the swing you're going so fast it's a bit seamless. And you lose perspective of how far you've gone. It's not until you look back at the jump house and see how tiny it is that you realise you're hundreds of metres away.

AND IT ROCKS!!!!!

Since none of the other ******* in my group were doing a second jump, they basically turned me around and dropped me again. Backwards. Now THAT was cool. I dropped so fast I basically dropped upside down, with my legs flipped all the way over me. I eventually straightened out but I got a hell of a great view of the jump house zooming further and further away from me. And I have it on GoPro, of course. Once that's finished loading, I'll put it up for all to see.

So not tired tonight. My body hurts in every direction though. Can't imagine why. Three Canyon Swings, two Nevis Swings, white-water rafting, Shotover Jet, Helichopper ride, paragliding and a three hour at-pace horse ride. In four days. Nothing hectic about it at all... At least with the southerly coming in tonight I'll probably have a more relaxed day tomorrow. I am on holidays, after all.