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New Zealand: Day 77: South Island Motorbike Trip: Day 04: Lake Hawea - Queenstown - Lake Gunn

The South Island journey continued early in the morning, but this time only for me. I left John in his tent in Kidds Bush Reserve campsite. He needed some extra beauty sleep and energy to keep up with young guy like me.

Good morning Lake Hawea

Someone was still snoring in this tent when I left

Sunrise over Lake Hawea

View back to our campsite, Kidds Bush Reserve

At 7 a.m. I already found a nearby Geocache called Hawea View, GCZZEC where I dropped trackable item Little Wrench, TB54MWH. Soon I continued South on the roads by the Lake Hawea and Lake Wanaka and on the Crown Range Road to Queenstown.

Lake Hawea

Lake Wanaka

The beginning of the Crown Range Road

 

Crown Range Road is a road that winds steeply between Arrow Junction, south of Arrowtown, and Wanaka to the north. This is one of the highest sealed roads in New Zealand. The bronze plaque at the Crown Range Road Summit confirms that this historic pass, at 1076 m is one of the highest sealed (paved) roads in all of New Zealand (2m higher than the Desert Road summit on State Highway 1 in the North Island).

In Queenstown I already booked a bungee about a month ago, but since it was a day for money spending, I decided to upgrade my package with the world's biggest swing. At 10 a.m. the bus picked us up and drove us to our adrenaline destination.

 

They drove us to our destination with 4x4 buses. 

 

I checked Bungy and The Swing drop-off points.

The guy before me survived, so it should be OK.

And here we go. My first Bungee jump, The Nevis Bungy, 134 metres above the Nevis River, which is also the highest in Australasia.

¸  

   

Since I survived, I continued with Nevis Swing – The World’s Biggest Swing, with 300 metre arc and 120m rope length that runs 160 meters above the nearby Doolan's Creek Gorge.

 

My instructor escorted me to the start point

How shall I do it? Upside down looks cool.

Ready to go

    

    

Upside down swing over Doolan's Creek

Here are both videos:

 

 

I did it!

 

 

When I finished with Bungee and Swing, I checked how they make the bungee ropes.

When I was younger, I already did a Swing in Slovenia, from old Peračica Bridge, free of charge. Check it in a video below.

Peracica jump from Tuši Tuši on Vimeo.

My biggest waste of money is on a voluntary basis was over. NZ$475 (310€) for a couple of seconds, but it was worth it. And I got a T-shirt. Would do it again for much less money. The 4x4 bus drove me back to Queenstown, where John was already waiting for me, filled with energy. Since the city can easily take all your money for all sorts of adrenaline activities, we quickly continued with our riding. We filled the gas and did some shopping in Te Anau and moved on towards the last campsite before Milford Sound, where we set our tents and exchange some words with people from Germany and Czech Republic.

Great view towards North

Alien from space. Oh, no, just Tusi from Slovenia.

 

A bit boring roads offered great scenery, but I had to slow down, because my rear tyre was almost without a tread 

Our new sleeping place was Lake Gunn campsite that was quite full, still there is always a place for 2 bikers

The area around Lake Gunn became dark in the evening, also a bit cold, but the fire warmed us up a little bit

Best part of this road was definitely the Crown Range Road