Fly By Wire

UP about 8:30, showered and had breakfast, went to AJ Hackett and picked up my photo's, then drove out to Kawarau Suspension Bridge, and old, historic suspension bridge, and also the site of the first commercial bungy in the world. AJ Hackett setup his first bunjy jump operation off this bridge in 1988, and yes, it's still running today. It's a 43 metre jump, pales into comparison to what I did yesterday. When I got there, there were some people jumping, including an older lady (who did good!) and a Japanese girl, who, when the jump master counted down, 4....3....2....1....JUMP, she didn't jump. The spectators laughed, we could here her laugh a bit too, and she backed away. She got inched back out, and again, 4.....3.....2.....1....JUMP, and she hesitated, and I'm not sure, but I think she got a little nudge from the staff, and over she went!!!!!!!!!!!! Hahahahaha! She screamed the whole way.

Back to town, had lunch at the hostel, then about 11:45, walked to the Fly By Wire office and me and 3 others went out to the Fly By Wire site, on a farmers ranch, in a valley. (http://www.flybywire.co.nz) I went first, I got strapped into this plane, and given the simple instructions, and the I was flying around, attached to a swivelling wire. It was good fun, certainly not terrifying like the bungy. You have about 6 minutes of powered flight. It was a blast. I remember, I was making plane noises the whole time. "Nnnnneeeeaaarrrrrr" the whole time, as I divebombed their building every time! I had one of the other flyers video tape me with my video camera. I forgot to look at the speedometer until near the end, and I was getting almost 140kph on my down swings, but I think I was going faster than that earlier on in my flight.

Back to town about 2:00, checked out my flying pics at their office, but didn't buy them.

Back to the hostel, tried to make reservations in Wanaka, but all the hostels are full! Damn skiiers and snowboarders!

AFter that, I took the gondola up the side of the mountain in Queenstown, and WOW, some amazing views of everything from up there. I wanted to see a show called Kiwi Magic at the small cinema at the top, but they need 4 people minimum to show it, and I was the only one, so decided to do the luge instead (just like the luge I did in Rotorua). This luge SUCKS compared to Rotorua. Rotorua was way better.

Then had supper, watched TV for a while, then hit the internet.