Rock Climbing in Queenstown

For Christmas, my dad sent me a card with a coupon for 2 adventures in Queenstown, the adventure capital of the world! You can go skydiving, bungee jumping in multiple locations, jet boating, paragliding, and mountain biking, but we chose rock climbing!

The full-day rock climbing trip was on those mountains behind Queenstown. This was the view from the top of the gondola. We walked up the steep hill, taking care of the the mountain bikers skidding past who go up the gondola and zoom down the mountain and set their bikes on the gondola and do it all again.

These are the rocks we were climbing. The trail in went along the top of this water pipe, with the blue handrail for safety.

Pretty awesome view from up there...

In this pic James is lead climbing, which means that he fastens the rope to the bolts on the rock as he climbs and is protected from there. I was top roping, which means I'm connected at the top of the rock.

It was a private trip, just me and James and our guide, a cool chick who immigrated to NZ from Australia.

Rock climbing is so much fun! It would be great to do a climbing trip around NZ or even the US, just drive around to all the different cliffs to climb with all the gear in the boot (thats what the call the trunk here) and camp at the base. That's definitly on my to-do list!

Ropes in New Zealand are about twice as expensive as they are in the states, so people buying them new usually purchase in the states and get them mailed here.



Now that we know where it is, we can come back here! All we need are ropes, harnesses, and quickdraws...