LED ASTRAY

As I said, my morning started out in a mellow fashion. I followed the jet boaters into town, bade them farewell for their adventure and dinked around in town for a bit. I was sitting in the sun,watching the world go by, when I saw Steve. He was headed to his next thrill...the "Shotover Canyon Swing" and was filling me in on all the fun he had being thrown out of the raft into the raging river. Somehow, I found myself reluctantly agreeing to accompany him to the Canyon Swing. While he was filling out the paper work, they slapped a "swinger" wrist band on me and said I also had to fill out the safety documents. Hmmmmm. Seemed strange, since I was only going along for the ride. The other 4 companions were two very nice and very young couples from England. As we were getting in the van, the driver/ guide said..."it's a beautiful day to die"! Chuckles all around. Ha. Then he cranked up some Nirvana...loud, and away we went. I had a feeling, I was in a time warp or something, since these kids and the driver knew all the words to: Another one Bites the Dust! Climbing rapidly, we turned off onto a very narrow gravel road. He did call ahead and said we were on the road, so we wouldn't meet anyone coming down. As if I wasn't having enough fun, he then undid his seat belt and told us to do the same...because if we started to tumble down the cliff....we could jump free! I figured the Canyon Swing would be a piece of cake after the ride up!
The world's highest cliff jump is 109 m high, a 60 m free fall, then a 200m arching swing. Then they reel you back up to the platform. There are many ways(or forms) of jumping, from easy plunge to 4X scary hard, which is the one Steve chose. After the other four kids went screaming, it was Steve's turn. He chose the "pin drop" which was hands clasped behind his back and leaning forward, looking at his toes...then jump off sideways!!!!!! He did it, saying it was the biggest "rush"of the whole trip for him. Then they let everyone go tandem, but since he was alone, they let him have another turn. I guess he really thinks these thrill events are fun, but I was bracing for the ride back down the mountain as my adrenaline rush of the day. This time, along with then rock music blasting, he put on a video of funny things that happened to people when they jumped. Glad we saw that little ditty AFTER Steve's jumping.
It ended with a visit to a nice pub, where our wrist bands got us a nice big glass of ale. Then we went to Devil Burger and had a huge venison burger on homemade rolls. Finally, since Steve had barely eaten all day...he splurged on a huge piece of chocolate/raspberry melt cake!