Off Flying

Our last day in Queenstown was our first flying, though not quite as intended.  Walking down a steep sets of stairs which ended 20 - 60 ft in the air, no handrails and then leaping off the end was not my idea of fun.  Even though we were securely hitched to a Zip wire, with necessary safely helmet and safety line, the image taken from their automatic camera shows me hanging on for dear life.  Fred on the other hand can be seen happily falling backwards off the platform with her arms out wide and eyes shut, running down the zipwire upside down or arms and legs outstretched.  She is now talking of going parascending when we get back to QT.  The six zipwire runs take you from the top of the Queenstown's mountain to the bottom with a short walk in the middle where there is an absence of trees to fix the wires.  The last run, one of the longest, is also the fastest where, we are told, you can reach a speed of 70mph.  I seemed to go the fastest - probably something to do with E=MC2 - and there is a lot of MC! The last run also has a braking system and standby braking system comprising a net strung on on pulleys, linked back to the platform with bungee.  Fortunately not needed.....

The following day we were due to be picked up underneath the glider hanging in the rafters of Queenstown airport for the start of our real flying trip.