Free Kiwi Tracks by Lonely Planet

WESTPORT
    NELSON LAKES NATIONAL PARK
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QUEENSTOWN – WANAKA – GREYMOUTH – CHRISTCHURCH
    ‘ Cool ,’ the young Scot replies, when I tell him I am headed for Queenstown. ‘So are we. Throw your pack in the back seat.’
    I crawl in beside my pack, which takes up most of the room. ‘Queenstown is fantastic,’ he adds, as we continue down the highway. His girlfriend sits up front with him. They look like teenagers, although he must be at least twenty. Must be their sun-protected complexions with all the rain back home. In New Zealand everyone looks older than they really are. Must be the sun and the hole in the ozone layer.
    ‘That’s where they invented bungee jumping,’ he continues with enthusiasm. ‘Cool place. You can do anything there. Go bungee jumping off the biggest jumps, go on jet-boat rides, dirt biking, parachuting, paragliding, river-boarding, skydiving, hang-gliding, kayaking, canoeing, horse riding. Full-on place.’ He uses the Kiwi vernacular, having picked it up, he tells me, during the six months they have been driving around the country in their Holden. ‘Tried to get a job in Queenstown but everyone wants a job there. Queenstown has it all. Ever been bungee jumping?’ he asks, lighting up a cigarette. I have to concentrate to understand his broad Scottish dialect.
    Distracted, I reply, ‘Uh-uh.’ I continue to admire the perfect scenery, while sticking my nose out the open side window to get
a whiff of fresh air. It doesn’t get much more picturesque than this anywhere in the world.
    ‘You should. You’d like it.’ His head bobs in synchrony to the radio tunes. ‘It’s cool.’
    ‘Actually, I would like it about as much as I would enjoy dodging highway traffic during rush hour. Not a lot of skill involved in having someone tie a giant rubber band around your ankles and push you off a big drop.’ I can be such an amenable guy but sometimes little twerps like this start wagging my tongue for me.
    ‘Tried parachuting then?’ he asks, undeterred.
    ‘BTDT,’ I reply dismissively.
    ‘What?’ he asks.
    ‘Been there, done that.’
    ‘How about jet boating?’ he persists.
    ‘Too wilderness intrusive,’ I respond. The jet boat, invented in New Zealand, is unique in that it dispenses with propellers. Unfortunately, the impellers built into the hull provide powered boats with shallower draft. Practical as that may be, it gives jet boats greater access up otherwise non-navigable rivers, into what would normally be impenetrable wilderness regions. Great when you are trying to ‘tame’ the bush, but not so great when you are trying to conserve it.
    ‘Should try rafting then. That’s not wilderness intrusive.’
    ‘I used to own a rafting company in Norway, on the Sjoa River.’ That’s also about as beautiful a setting as you could ever hope to find. I’d be hard put to choose between the Sjoa and here for scenic beauty.
    ‘You don’t any more?’
    ‘Every time there was a drowning, the bookings went up. Didn’t like the mentality of the clients. Bunch of yahoos.’ At his age I was rafting and doing a lot more foolish things too.
    ‘You had drownings?’ He turns around, eyes wide, as if this were an inconceivable consequence of rafting.
    ‘Every summer.’ At least he is quiet after that. I stare out the window at the landscape. To compensate for my testiness, I fill
his car up with petrol when we get to Queenstown. I love the enthusiasm of younger travellers; their lives are in front of them and they’re excited about everything. I hate it when I start acting and talking like a killjoy.
    Queenstown is the kind of party place that fills up on Friday and Saturday nights and empties just as quickly on Sundays. Arriving on a relatively subdued Sunday afternoon, I walk up to the gondola on the mountain overlooking the town. Despite the beautiful setting, the ‘full-on’ tourism of Queenstown has destroyed whatever authentic New Zealand atmosphere there might once