Sat 30 Jan - Queenstown, Actionville NZ

Now what was Mike going to do? On offer was kayaking, jet boating, white water rafting, river surfing, paragliding, ballooning, hang gliding, skydiving, bungy jumping, mountain biking, off road quadbiking and motor biking and you could even hire a Segway to make yourself look a complete twit as you ‘rode’ around town! In the end it was a toss up between doing a bungy jump in the Karawau river gorge (the site where bungy jumping originated) or sailing an America’s Cup contender boat on Lake Wakatipu. Well Christine was never keen on me doing the former and having a chance to crew on a racing boat appealed (and would last longer than the couple of seconds of sheer terror) so I opted for the latter. It was great fun and taught me how the ‘grinders’ work on this type of boat. Due to the size of mainsail in use it took eight of us working the winch system flat out to raise the sail at which point is was determined there was too much wind so it was promptly lowered and we sailed back and forth across the lake at 9 plus knots on the foresail. (Don’t worry, this will only make sense to the sailors amongst you)!
Prior to this we ascended to Bob’s Lookout – a viewing platform/restaurant/ shop complex 400 metres above Queenstown - in the Skyline Gondola. This is a small 4 person cable car from which superb views of Queenstown and the surrounding mountain ranges were gained. Needless to say this amounted to the most daredevil activity that Christine would participate in! There was a small ski type lift that took you up a further 100 or so metres but this was a step too far for our intrepid quilter!