Adventure Capital of the World

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This picture says it all about Queenstown, NZ.  I’ve been in the southern hemisphere for a little over 4 weeks now and two of those weekends have been spent with this gorgeous backdrop as my playground.  I shared this last trip with 30 international students who caravaned up to ski at The Remarkables, ride the jetboats, luge down a hill and bungy the 143 m high Nevis. 

Our free time was spent wandering the tourist packed streets of Queenstown which has adventure guides and mountain gear shops on every corner.
 
After already deciding that I want a house here, I stumbled upon a real estate dealer that had houses with spectacular views for $384,000 USD.  If only I weren’t a broke college student…
 
A few brave souls, including myself, mustered up the courage to take on The Nevis bungy jump outside of town on Sunday morning.  With all of us literally shaking as the bus rolled out of town, my buddy Ryan turned as said “Man, I feel like some ridiculous heavy metal music should be blasting right now”…..and on queue the driver cranked up Welcome to the Jungle.  I was hitting just about the same notes as Axel in the photo above.  Check out the full video of my jump here.
 
The adventure capital of the world sure lived up to its hype.   And I haven’t even been jet boating, paragliding, skydiving, or heli-skiing yet.  Stay tuned…
--Tyler Grubb