Wednesday 21st March 2007. Queenstown. New Zealand.

Trust me...the anticipation is definitely the worst bit as you cling white-knuckled to the take-off platform...


Queenstown was so-named because it was considered to be "fit for Queen Victoria". Here on the shores of Lake Wakatipu the town is surrounded by the Remarkables mountain range amidst the alpine scenery of mountains, lakes and rivers in the snow rich Southern Alps.

Geologically speaking this is a young and continually evolving landscape. The Remarkable's are the result of the faulting and folding of schist rock in such dramatic forms that many rock faces are near vertical. The continental glaciers that once covered this entire Lakes District were blankets of ice sometimes 2,000 metres thick.

In terms of Lake Wakatipu the moving ice picked up masses of rock from the mountain sides and valley floors and both grinded the hills smooth and gouged out the deep troughs that we know today as the Southern Lakes.

Queenstown was established in the 1860's as a goldmining camp and today it is known as the World's Adventure Capital.

The first humans in this region were the Polynesian Moa hunters who are known to have been here around the thirteenth century. The Maori were next coming here in search of food, fibre and stone. They also hunted the large flightless Moa and they are credited with discovering the sources of Pounamu (or greenstone) at the head of the lake. Greenstone was not just ornamental, but served a useful role both in the manufacture of tools and for weapons.

The first European exploration was in the 1860's by a young Southland farmer, Nathaniel Chalmers who was guided by two elderly Maori. With Reko, the Chief of the Tuturau and Kaikoura he had set out from Mataura in September of 1853 with a plan to explore the northern inland territory routes known to the local Maori. He first saw Lake Wakatipu from the Sleat Range near Garston.

The Crown Range route running between Wanaka and Queenstown through the Cardrona Valley was to become one of the principal tracks for the goldminers and early sheepmen. This route, which rises to 1,120 metres, remains the highest main road in New Zealand.

Although others had reached the lake before them, William Gilbert Rees and Nicholas Paul Baltasar von Tunzlemann made in 1860 the first successful approach to the lake basin from the east.

Rees is regarded as the pioneer of Queenstown as he established his homestead on the present site of the town facing towards Queenstown Bay.

The story of the two men goes thus...

they married sisters and after the toss of a coin, Rees and his wife choose to reside on the Queenstown side of the lake and had two very successful and peaceful years before the goldrush took over and the miners poured in. The area was then declared a goldfield and Rees was paid ₤10,000 to vacate his property.

The Von Tunzlemann's across the lake suffered badly from stock deaths and snow storms and they were finally forced from their land by a lack of money.

It could not be the mid-1800's without a Goldrush...

Large quantities of alluvial gold were discovered in the Arrow River in late 1862 by William Fox, John O'Callaghan and others and this started a rush of miners even coming from the Australian and Californian fields. The shanty towns that sprang up to accommodate tents, stores and bars eventually became Queenstown and Arrowtown.

But how did Queenstown become the Adventure Capital of the World?

The origins lie in Bungy Jumping when in 1988 AJ Hackett opened the world's first commercial bungy site on the Kawarau Bridge.

Built in the 1880's to connect Queenstown and the rest of Central Otago (in the days of the goldrush) the bridge was replaced in the 1960's and fell into a state of disrepair. Transformed by Hackett and Henry Van Asch this site was soon to be copied by extreme sports enthusiasts the world over.


As they say...it takes a certain kind of person to step out of an aircraft at 15,000ft into thin air. Plummeting towards the earth for 60 seconds at some 200kph this is terminal velocity.

They claim that the only thing preventing you from enjoying one of the most primal life shaping experiences is your own mind...today it was the weather. I was there for my 8.30am jump but Mother Nature had decided otherwise.

So after breakfast at the Naff Caff on Shotover Street and a morning of work on the project I am off to follow the history trail and Bungy from the Kawarau Bridge...let's hope I return??

Bungy has its origins in Vanuatu in the Pacific where people have been throwing themselves from huge towers for centuries with nothing more than a few vines attached to their feet. In the 1970's these ancient rituals inspired members of the Dangerous Sports Club at of one of my alma maters (Oxford University) to begin a few experimental jumps...famously from the Clifton Suspension Bridge and into the arms of the law in 1979.

However the story really takes off in the 1980's with AJ Hackett teaming up with fellow speed skier Henry van Asch to develop bungy as a modern sport. After extensive stress testing conducted on latex rubber cords a series of extreme jumps were made. The first at Ponts de la Caille was a 147m jump near Annecy. The famous jump though came in 1987 when AJ jumped from the Eiffel Tower and the bungy legend was born.

On November 12th 1988 the Kawarau Bungy Bridge became the world's first full time bungy site and the offical home of the Bungy...and today I made my successful leap!

The world's first bungy site sits here some 43m above the crystal clear waters of the Kawarau River. The cords used to bungy are made from natural latex rubber and they are manufactured from latex strands. They are produced in 5 different density's from super-light (18 ply) to super-heavy (36 ply) and are selected according to the weight of the jumper. Cords are used for an average of 500 jumps and they are never more than 6 years old.

Between opening and November 2003 an estimated 5500m (5.5km) of bungy cord has been used at Kawarau Bridge. AJ Hackett manfacture approximately 785m of bungy cord each year.

Back in town and we have cocktails with our group at the motel before Jill, Alex and I head out for dinner at @ Thai.