Queenstown Day Three: The birthplace of bungy & a slice of history

Emma

Dec 8, 20203 min read

Updated: Jan 1, 2021

After a little bit of a sleep in we headed to Bespoke Kitchen for a healthy breakfast to ensure we were fuelled up for another day of adventures!

Today we were headed out to the legendary Karawau Bridge, which is the birthplace of bungy jumping for our next adrenaline rush. If you are ever going to Bungy jump in your life, this is the place to do it. The centre is really well set up for both participants and spectators and everyone will have a good time here, whether they are jumping or not. There are usually a few wild backpackers that do the jump naked, which is hugely entertaining, mostly because they don’t realise that they have to walk ALLLL the way back up the stairs and past the spectator viewing platform after they have jumped to get their clothes. There was a smorgasbord of German sausage on display the day we went. Very entertaining stuff.

I did the bungy jump when I was here on my Contiki tour in 2010, and while I am glad I tried it, bungy jumping is not for me. I would happily skydive every day for the rest of my life, but there is something about bungy jumping I just didn’t like. Maybe the feeling that you are jumping to your death...who knows LOL

Today we were here to ride The Karawau zipride, which was a relatively new attraction and suited to almost everyone. It is great fun, great value and the best part is that it’s set up with three zip lines side by side, so you can race your mates down to the bottom or see who can ride in the silliest pose. After the flying fox the day before this was a walk in the park for us and not scary at all but lots of fun.

After a few hours back at the hotel it was time to get ready for tonight’s activity, which was a return scenic cruise on the TSS Earnslaw (the only remaining commercial passenger-carrying coal-fired steam ship in the southern hemisphere) to the Walter Peak High Country Farm for a gourmet BBQ dinner and farm tour/demonstration. The cruise to the farm was absolutely beautiful and the scenery was stunning. Even though it was summer it was pretty chilly, so make sure you bring a warm jacket with you even if you don’t think you’ll need it.

When we arrived at Walter Peak farm we were ushered straight into the big dining room. Even though there must have been about 200 or 300 people it was exceptionally well organised and there was very minimal waiting and plenty of delicious BBQ food for everyone. We finished our dinner in time to catch the sunset over the bay from just outside the restaurant.

After dinner, there was a farm tour and demonstration that, of course, included shearing a sheep. I wasn’t the biggest fan of this part as the guy seemed to not really know what he was doing and the sheep definitely didn’t seem to be having a good time, but it was over pretty quickly. The farm itself is beautiful and there were quite a few animals to look at. It was great to see the sheepdogs doing their thing. We boarded the ship back to Queenstown and sat inside this time. It was dark, so there wasn’t too much to see until we were about 10 minutes away from Queenstown. At this stage, we went back outside to brave the cold and look at the lights as we pulled into town. This was a great tour, definitely suitable for all ages and really great value.

After a nightcap (or three) we headed back to the hotel and fell into bed!