The World Around Us

Queenstown from the air

Country: New Zealand by Lisette

06-03-2005

Before I share the story with you about offering myself up for another crazy adventure in my continuing efforts to confront my irrational fear of heights, here a crazy jet boat-ride story.

Contact lenses anyone?

Before you consider having contact lenses, read the following.

From Queenstown it is possible to go on a narrow river on high speed and spin and turn like nobody’s business. Watch this video for a taste of it.

As is often the case, something stupid happened to me… after the first twirl my contact lens in my right eye shifts and gets stuck under my eyelid. Ouch! Without the chance of looking in a pocket-mirror it is impossible to straighten the lens. The spinning is so not helping right now.

After fifteen minutes of trying to pretend this isn’t painful, I couldn’t take it anymore. I wanted to ask the driver to stop for a second, but my saviour came forward. The pretty Venezuelan woman next to me understood the problem perfectly. She smiled and said “open your eye for a second”. Before I realized what was happening she stuck her pinkie in my eye and placed my lens straight on the pupil where it belonged.

The immediate relief was so much I felt like hugging her. And I did, after the ride. 🙂

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A helicopter view of The Remarkables

The day after my jet boat shifted my contact lens, I climbed into the front seat of a helicopter. Yes, me! Unbelievable…

Crazy thing is, I loved almost every second of it! I recalled the views from my hot air balloon ride in Australia and my heli-hike ride recently and got ever so excited.

It was slightly disturbing to not only see, but also hear the weather change from up close. The wind gusts gave the ride some turbulence and the doors rattled a fair bit because of that. Other than that, I wasn’t worried, as the pilot seemed unimpressed by it all.

Some of the amazing views I saw, follow below.

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